tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615Mon, 27 Jul 2015 14:56:37 +0000torontovintage adfoodhistoryphotosadvertisingroadtripdetroitnewspaperssignsmusiccomic bookswindsorfamilytpspast pieces of torontoelectionschildhoodamherstburgpoliticsttccbcmoviesrecipesalcoholfriendshalloweentelevisionwarehouse election centralkensington market1970schristmasradiobackstreets of torontomontreal1960schildhood tvhumourontario70scheque pleasemagazinesnew yorkoff the gridpublic transitessex countyfashiongourmet's gallerylondon uksodabaseballbook storesbuffalopacific coastroute 661980s2006 federal electionCFRUann arborautomobilecaliforniaguelphbookscommercialscyclingpeanutsquack medicineuniversityyorkvillebostondead mallgift ideasgrocery storessportssubwaythe telegramtoronto mayorsbest price moverscnedon valleyfake hairhotelsmovie theatressouthern sojourntheatretinned meattoledowhite woods mall1920s1990sart gallery of ontariocarolscroft streetdetroit tigersfoods men likekitschleasidemeatmedianorth yorknuit 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CONTENThttp://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Jamie)Blogger1078125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-8500616377052042700Mon, 27 Jul 2015 14:56:00 +00002015-07-27T10:56:37.190-04:001990shistoryoff the gridspadina avenuestreetcarstorontottcoff the grid: retro t.o. waitin' for the spadina streetcar<i>This installment of my "Retro T.O." column for <b>The Grid</b> was originally published on June 19, 2012.</i><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/20030353076/in/dateposted-public/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="gm 97-07-26 streetcar opening preview"><img alt="gm 97-07-26 streetcar opening preview" height="800" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/554/20030353076_7e1784bfb5_c.jpg" width="423" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Globe and Mail</b>, July 26, 1997. Click on image for larger version.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script> Lovers of wild pants and saxophones rejoice! As of this week, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZnLjRi_g9o" target="_blank">Spadina bus of 1980s musical fame</a> has returned while platform reconstruction takes the streetcar right-of-way out of service for several months. And the return of bus service might reawaken arguments that stalled the construction of the Spadina streetcar line for years.<br /><br />It’s possible opponents of the line forgot that Spadina had a long history of streetcar service, complete with a right-of-way down its spine, that operated from 1892 to 1948. Its demise came when streetcar service was “temporarily” suspended to conserve power amid postwar electrical shortages, though some city councillors were inclined to scrap it during proposals to widen Spadina Avenue. Apart from a stretch of track utilized by the Harbord streetcar until 1966, regular and trolley buses became the means of transit for the next half-century.<br /><br />When the TTC scrapped its plan to eliminate all streetcar service in the early 1970s, it was amenable to a proposal from transit activists Streetcars for Toronto to restore cars to Spadina. Noise concerns from residents and the provincial government’s preference for investing in new forms of transit equipment (think Scarborough RT) resulted in the idea being shelved. A decade later, a revised TTC proposal, in partnership with a Harbourfront line, was backed by the <b><i>Star</i></b>. A May 1983 editorial declared that a streetcar separated from traffic would be speedier than the “buses which now have to pick their way through Spadina’s horrendous congestion.”<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-crtSFR20XgY/VbZGbsX4O8I/AAAAAAAABio/m4iSPY3MQXI/s1600/ts%2B92-03-29%2Bspadina%2Bon%2Btrack%2Bsmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-crtSFR20XgY/VbZGbsX4O8I/AAAAAAAABio/m4iSPY3MQXI/s1600/ts%2B92-03-29%2Bspadina%2Bon%2Btrack%2Bsmall.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, March 29, 1992.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>A decade-long war over what became known as the Spadina LRT ensued. On the pro-side were the TTC and various levels of government seeking downtown transit improvements. Metro Toronto chairman Dennis Flynn saw potential for easing the strain on the Yonge-University line by providing an alternative for west-end commuters heading into the core. The separated right-of-way would lessen traffic jams that occasionally made walking a speedier form of transit. The anti-side echoed many complaints heard about major streetcar and LRT projects that followed: destruction of businesses, construction nightmares, narrowed sidewalks, and loss of parking (angled at the time on Spadina). A major fear was that heavy trucks unable to cross a 15 cm–high concrete barrier would disrupt residential neighbourhoods to make their deliveries. As for the route’s vibrant street life, <b><i>Star</i></b> columnist David Lewis Stein felt that the right-of-way would “put an end to the boisterous anarchy that exists on Spadina.” He also noted that “this looks like one of those classic fights between planners obsessed with speed and efficiency and people … who cherish the history and human values of Spadina.”<br /><br />An endless series of public consultations and holdups followed that produced a series of compromises before the line was finally green-lit in 1992. Major concessions included reducing sidewalk loss, installing trees, lowering the barrier/raising the tracks so that vehicles could turn left anywhere along the street, and only enforcing the right-of-way during rush hours.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/20030349916/in/dateposted-public/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="ts 97-07-21 streetcar back on track"><img alt="ts 97-07-21 streetcar back on track" height="800" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/458/20030349916_a59bf69895_c.jpg" width="425" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, July 21, 1997. Click on image for larger version.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script> Among the dignitaries who rode a vintage Peter Witt streetcar for the line’s official launch on July 27, 1997 was 77-year-old railway enthusiast Allen Maitland, who the TTC figured was among the last riders of the original Spadina car. “I’ve been on many last runs of streetcars in Toronto,” Maitland told the <b><i>Star</i></b>, “too many in fact. It will be great to be on a first run.” Accompanying first-day activities included 32,000 free afternoon rides and a series of festivals and sidewalk sales that featured dancing dragons and puppet shows. Ronald Vanstone rode the line four times that day to film the route—“It’s a great sightseeing trip. You can taste different cultural flavours all at once.” Some who feared its effects changed their tune, including David Lewis Stein, who declared that he had “fallen in love” with the line. As for the vacant storefronts on the strip, the blame was placed more on the recession of the early 1990s and the local Chinese community’s move northward than the streetcar.<br /><br />One compromise opponents insisted on proved disastrous. During the line’s first year there were 160 collisions between streetcars and other vehicles. Most of the accidents happened when cars tried to turn left at non-signalled intersections. <b><i>Globe and Mail</i></b> columnist John Barber awarded the “biggest bonehead award” to a driver who turned into the side of a streetcar that had just stopped beside him. The driver told the streetcar operator, “I didn’t see you.”<br /><br />The long-contested barriers were installed.<br /><br /><i>Additional material from the October 4, 1985 and September 4, 1997 editions of the <b>Globe and Mail</b>, and the May 13, 1983, June 4, 1986, July 21, 1997, July 28, 1997, August 10, 1997, and July 14, 1998 editions of the <b>Toronto Star</b>.</i>http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/07/off-grid-retro-to-waitin-for-spadina.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-2674989134588629884Tue, 21 Jul 2015 17:02:00 +00002015-07-21T13:02:53.705-04:00cemeteriescumberland terracehistoryoff the gridpilot tavernpotter's fieldshopping mallstorontoyorkvilleoff the grid: ghost city cumberland terrace<i>This installment of my "Ghost City" column for <b>The Grid</b> was originally published on January 15, 2013.</i><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uSUmTxPFTIQ/Va5wHRgeLMI/AAAAAAAABhc/dXbNDdKRazI/s1600/tldec85_cumberland%2Bterracesmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uSUmTxPFTIQ/Va5wHRgeLMI/AAAAAAAABhc/dXbNDdKRazI/s1600/tldec85_cumberland%2Bterracesmall.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Life</b>, December 1985.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>That Cumberland Terrace exists as a time capsule of shopping-mall design fits well with one of the site’s earliest uses: A cemetery preserving the memory of loved ones. Currently honoured with a plaque on the 2 Bloor West tower, <a href="http://torontoist.com/2011/10/historicist-in-potters-field/" target="_blank">Potter’s Field</a> was Toronto’s first non-denominational burial ground when it opened in July 1826.<br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pHWZMGgRnms/Va5vxvBuhKI/AAAAAAAABhU/gxmdTkrQaMA/s1600/pottersfieldplaque.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pHWZMGgRnms/Va5vxvBuhKI/AAAAAAAABhU/gxmdTkrQaMA/s1600/pottersfieldplaque.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br />Just as redevelopment a century-and-a-half later pushed out the coffee houses and hippie kids, the growing village of Yorkville successfully petitioned to close the cemetery in 1855. Getting rid of Potter’s Field wasn’t easy—though many remains, including those of 1837 rebels Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, were quickly moved to the Necropolis, it wasn’t until 1881 that the last of the unclaimed bones were legally sent elsewhere.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rP5GkswS9aA/Va53KgR4ZYI/AAAAAAAABhs/XTKWGjUR_NQ/s1600/old%2Bpilot%2Btavern.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rP5GkswS9aA/Va53KgR4ZYI/AAAAAAAABhs/XTKWGjUR_NQ/s400/old%2Bpilot%2Btavern.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Northwest corner of Bloor and Yonge, with view of the old Pilot Tavern location, late 1960s or early 1970s. Photo by Ellis Wiley. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 124, File 2, Image 110. Click on image for larger version.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>The property was soon covered over with businesses and residences. Among the most venerable was the <a href="http://www.thepilot.ca/" target="_blank">Pilot Tavern</a>, which began as a booze-free restaurant at 800 Yonge St. in 1944. Newspaper ads following its receipt of a liquor licence in 1949 touted the Pilot as “a guide to good foods” specializing in barbecued chicken and broiled steaks. By the 1960s, its location close to the Yorkville scene made it a hangout for artists and writers. Legend has it that when construction of 2 Bloor West and Cumberland Terrace forced the Pilot to relocate to an old auto-repair shop on Cumberland Street in 1972, regulars helped move the fixtures and furniture to hasten the bar’s reopening.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FunD-AtN1uA/Va54eXiEurI/AAAAAAAABh4/C_Y2cs3g5W8/s1600/cumberlandterraceopeningad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FunD-AtN1uA/Va54eXiEurI/AAAAAAAABh4/C_Y2cs3g5W8/s1600/cumberlandterraceopeningad.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Globe and Mail</b>, October 14, 1974.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>“The nicest way from Yonge to Bay” was Cumberland Terrace’s slogan when it opened on Oct. 14, 1974. Described in an ad as “three glass-enclosed levels of intriguing shops and restaurants,” it utilized fashionable hues of red-and-orange brick and flooring to enhance its landscaped interior. Initial tenants included a mix of chains (<a href="http://torontoist.com/2015/06/vintage-toronto-ads-blacks/" target="_blank">Black’s</a>, Classic Book Shops, Dack’s Shoes, LCBO), and independent retailers with odd names like Mr Eat ’Em. Highlights of day one included a steam calliope playing at the northwest corner of Yonge and Bloor and a display of classic cars sponsored by a cigarette maker. Within a month, DeBoer’s opened a two-floor furniture store. The mall’s location above a busy subway junction and across the street from a new parking lot seemed to bode well for its future.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HRw_JwXbQvA/Va55CCBDakI/AAAAAAAABiA/2osTw0RjfAs/s1600/ts%2B81-04-10%2Bbreastfeeding%2Bincident.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HRw_JwXbQvA/Va55CCBDakI/AAAAAAAABiA/2osTw0RjfAs/s1600/ts%2B81-04-10%2Bbreastfeeding%2Bincident.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, April 10, 1981.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>One of the mall’s periodic antique shows caused controversy when a vendor was removed for breastfeeding in April 1981. Jennifer Trott was feeding her two-month old son when boutique owner Rosalie Antel started yelling at her. Antel told the press that Trott’s activity in front of the store made her and her customers uncomfortable, apparently for sanitary reasons. “She was handling dirty money,” she told the <b><i>Globe and Mail</i></b>. “She was giving change to people. I don’t think it’s healthy.” Mall manager Ray Wolf asked Trott to move to a less visible part of her booth while breast-feeding, prompting Trott to tell passersby that management opposed children. She was kicked off the premises after telling Wolf’s secretary to go to hell. Two weeks later, Trott and 40 other mothers held a breastfeeding protest inside the mall. While Antel thought the demonstration was “degrading and dirty,” most onlookers supported the protesters and mall management let them be. As one witness put it, “A kid’s hungry, he’s got to eat.”<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/2408614138/in/photolist-5CMR5z-3eySwS-duPuhK-4EQM4Y-asDj8-7cnXbn-asDjb-3eXJLB" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="3 Level Shopping"><img alt="3 Level Shopping" height="375" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2278/2408614138_fdace00cf4.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Photo of Cumberland Terrace taken along Cumberland Street, April 10, 2008.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></div>The mall slowly decayed over the following decades, as its higher-end retailers moved elsewhere and its upper levels emptied. As the owners failed to upgrade the premises, Cumberland Terrace became an unofficial monument to 1970s shopping design. Despite providing a home for independent businesses, it was increasingly viewed as a blight on the increasingly aspirational neighbourhood streetscape. “It’s pretty sad,” Yorkville-Bloor BIA general manager Briar de Lange observed in 2008. “They’ve really only been able to keep the lights on.”<br /><br />In 2008, Oxford Properties revealed plans designed by architectural firm Bregman + Hamann for a new complex featuring retail, two condo towers, and nine luxury town homes. Holt Renfrew expressed interest in expanding its nearby store into the project, which was slated to begin by spring 2010. While the city approved the proposal in February 2010, neighbouring businesses like the Pilot Tavern were concerned about the development’s impact, especially the height of its podium, which developers agreed to set back further from the street. While an appeal at the OMB was settled in April 2011, groundbreaking doesn’t appear to be on the horizon. During this lull, history buffs should take advantage of one of the last barely altered examples of 1970s Toronto retail architecture.<br /><br /><i>Additional material from the April 22, 1981 and August 23, 2008 editions of the <b>Globe and Mail</b>, and the January 16, 1953, October 14, 1974, April 10, 1981, and November 27, 1994 editions of the <b>Toronto Star</b>.</i><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8B4vRU91TMc/Va56jNG3WaI/AAAAAAAABiM/RJ30kh_Da9Y/s1600/gallerymoos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8B4vRU91TMc/Va56jNG3WaI/AAAAAAAABiM/RJ30kh_Da9Y/s400/gallerymoos.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Panel on Gallery Moos, Cumberland Terrace, November 2014. Click on image for larger version.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>As of July 2015, Cumberland Terrace is still operating. To cover its walls and empty retail spaces, <a href="http://torontoist.com/2014/11/cumberland-terrace-tells-the-story-of-yorkville-at-a-glance/" target="_blank">panels commemorating the history of the surrounding neighbourhood were installed in 2014</a>. There are also odd features such as <a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/torontos-pair-of-peculiar-vending-machines-dispensing-cronuts-and-cufflinks-side-by-side" target="_blank">the vending machine which dispenses cufflinks</a> (and its former partner, the one which <a href="http://www.bakerykaffeehaus.com/news/doughnut-macaroon-vending-machine-just-launched-toronto/" target="_blank">dispensed gourmet doughnuts</a>).http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/07/off-grid-ghost-city-cumberland-terrace.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-1951661165532652985Fri, 17 Jul 2015 04:18:00 +00002015-07-17T00:24:16.642-04:00alcoholhistoryoff the gridtemperancethe junctiontorontowest torontowilliam templeoff the grid: retro t.o. "temperance bill" temple keeps the junction dry<i>This installment of my "Retro T.O." column for <b>The Grid</b> was originally published on June 12, 2012.</i><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FxyqAv7xfCs/VaiB1FGPtyI/AAAAAAAABgg/eN4ZbXOeACA/s1600/city%2B79-11-04%2Btemple%2Bphoto%2Bsmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FxyqAv7xfCs/VaiB1FGPtyI/AAAAAAAABgg/eN4ZbXOeACA/s1600/city%2B79-11-04%2Btemple%2Bphoto%2Bsmall.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The<b> City</b>, November 4, 1979.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>As Toronto settles into patio season, pause for a moment if you enjoy a fermented beverage with friends. As late as 2000, enjoying a summer drink in public was impossible in portions of The Junction, a legacy of the dedicated efforts of “Temperance Bill” Temple to keep the neighbourhood dry.<br /><br />“He doesn’t look like a slayer of giants,” began William Stephenson’s profile of Temple for the <b><i>Star</i></b>’s <b><i>The City</i></b> supplement in 1979. “Not when he’s cruising the boulevards of the west end in his little red Pontiac. Nor while applying his special English to the balls at the Runnymede Lawn Bowling Club or felling the five-pins at the Plantation Bowlerama. Certainly not when he’s flirting with the nurses at St. Joseph’s Hospital each time he picks up the Meals-on-Wheels for delivery to Swansea’s shut-ins. On such occasions, the 5-foot-7, 130-pounder in the jaunty fedora and sport shirt looks like a successful politician, a Vic Tanny salesman, or perhaps a showbiz personality.”<br /><br />Yet William Horace Temple slayed a few giants in his lifetime. The largest was Ontario Premier George Drew, who Temple, a faithful member of the CCF/NDP, defeated in the riding of High Park during the 1948 provincial election, despite having a budget one-fiftieth the size. Temple, who had lost by 400 votes in the previous election five years earlier, benefitted from fears about the repercussions of government legislation allowing cocktail lounges. Following Drew’s defeat, the provincial Tories used extreme caution in future attempts to loosen liquor laws.<br /><br />At the time of <b><i>The City</i></b> article, Temple had celebrated his 80th birthday by downing quarts of tea. Though he once admitted to enjoying drinks to celebrate the end of World War I, Temple disdained anyone who imbibed. He believed the media was afraid to combat alcohol due to the power distillers held as advertisers, and claimed that all the negative aspects of American prohibition during the 1920s and 1930s was propaganda spread by liquor interests. “Booze enslaves, corrupts, destroys the moral fibre of a community,” Temple noted. “Battling the booze barons is the only honourable course for a citizen.”<br /><br />Temple’s disdain for booze stemmed from his father, an abusive alcoholic train conductor. As a pilot in France during World War I, Temple frequently guided tipsy airmen to bed. As an RCAF duty officer during World War II, Temple infuriated his superiors by denying passes to senior officers he felt were too drunk to fly—“I had an uncomfortable war,” he later noted.<br /><br />Keeping West Toronto alcohol-free was high among his pet projects. Its dry status <a href="http://torontoist.com/2012/09/historicist-a-carnival-of-vice/" target="_blank">dated back to 1904</a>, when it was still an independent municipality. One of the conditions imposed when the area was annexed by Toronto in 1909 was that a two-stage vote (one for retail sale, one for restaurants) would be required to approve alcohol. The first major test came in the mid-1960s, when the owners of the Westway Hotel at Dundas and Heintzman organized a petition to allow alcohol sales. Temple, who headed the West Toronto Inter-church Temperance Federation (WTITF), delayed a vote by two years by proving many of the names on the petition were invalid. When the vote came in January 1966, the drys won. Temple’s forces won by an even larger margin in 1972, despite promises from a proposed Bloor Street bar to turns its proceeds over to Variety Village. Yet another vote in 1984 failed to sway the community.<br /><br />Temple’s last hurrah came shortly after his death in April 1988. Smart money said that the temperance movement would collapse during a plebiscite that autumn without Temple’s determination and energy. “We did it for Bill,” proclaimed Derwyn Foley of WTITF when the drys won again. But it was one of the temperance side’s last victories. Throughout the 1990s, neighbourhoods within the dry area voted to allow alcohol. The last holdout, bounded by Bloor, Dundas, and Keele, voted 76 per cent in favour of allowing booze to be sold at restaurants in 2000 after dire predictions of increased crime and decay failed to materialize in the newly wet areas. As some proponents of alcohol sales predicted, an influx of businesses and eateries gradually flowed into The Junction.<br /><br />If there’s an afterlife, it’s easy to imagine Temple’s reaction upon learning West Toronto had finally got wet. They would be the same words he yelled when he disrupted a Hiram Walker shareholders meeting in 1968 to find out if the distiller was funding politicians: “Sheep, nothing but sheep!”<br /><br /><i>Additional material from the November 4, 1979 edition of <b>The City</b>, the April 11, 1988 edition of the <b>Globe and Mail</b>, and the April 11, 1988 and November 15, 1988 editions of the <b>Toronto Star</b>.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i><b>Bonus</b>: </i>here are some of the comments which originally accompanied this article.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TM-OVIQyGOg/VaiDYyjoKkI/AAAAAAAABgs/zGWUH_Sbv8E/s1600/grid-comments.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TM-OVIQyGOg/VaiDYyjoKkI/AAAAAAAABgs/zGWUH_Sbv8E/s1600/grid-comments.jpg" /></a></div>http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/07/off-grid-retro-to-temperance-bill.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-4519683994326757197Fri, 17 Jul 2015 03:30:00 +00002015-07-17T00:10:04.803-04:00adam vaughandoug holydaydowntown livinghistoryhousingken greenbergoff the gridtorontooff the grid: retro t.o. family living, downtown style<i>This installment of my "Retro T.O." column for <b>The Grid</b> was originally published on July 17, 2012.</i><br /><br />Last week, Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday mused that the city’s core “is not the ideal place” to raise a family. His sentiments about children playing in traffic on busy arteries aren’t anything that hasn’t been heard before, however wrong they are: families who have chosen to live deep downtown have long heard arguments about the suitability of such an environment for their children, especially from committed suburbanites like Holyday.<br /><br />During a meeting of the Washington, D.C.–based Urban Land Institute (ULI) in Toronto in May 1985, planners, developers, and investment advisors reviewed the city’s plans to redevelop the railway lands north of the Gardiner Expressway. They concluded that the city’s vision of having families eventually living there ran counter to the ways in which downtowns ought to be saved. Sounding not unlike Holyday, ULI president Claude Ballard said that children should be raised outside the core, in neighbourhoods where they could walk to school or rescue balls that rolled out into the street with minimal fear of being run over. Downtown living of the future, the argument went, was for empty-nesters who required less space once their offspring left home. In a rebuttal printed in the <b><i>Globe and Mail</i></b>, Toronto-based planner Ken Greenberg rejected Ballard’s vision, noting that “it is Toronto’s unwillingness in the past to follow conventional North American wisdom” on issues like encouraging families to live downtown that “goes a long way toward explaining why we have the much admired vitality, safety, and cleanliness on our streets.” Greenberg was likely referring to recently developed neighbourhoods like St. Lawrence, where mixed incomes and a large number of co-ops let its residents foster a community where children could enjoy a less homogenous upbringing than their parents had.<br /><br />Eighteen years later, the <b><i>Star</i></b> profiled several families who had moved into condos and lofts in the core. Parents interviewed in the May 2003 article praised, as one parent put it, the “complete and full spectrum of life in the city” that their kids enjoyed steps away from home. Shorter commutes to downtown jobs provided more time for families to spend together during the work week. All enjoyed the ability to walk everywhere, which was a big draw for former Brampton resident Lisa Voutt. Despite friends and relatives in the burbs thinking she was “kind of nuts” for moving her family into a loft near St. Lawrence Market, Voutt enjoyed being freed from a car-centric lifestyle and noted the confidence with which her preteen daughters got themselves around the core by foot or TTC, and the large number of nearby activities they participated in.<br /><br />Also interviewed for the article was Adam Vaughan, who had recently moved with his daughter into a condo not far from his job at the time as a CityTV reporter. “I wanted a place that was close to the culture of the city, the galleries, the music, and close to the politics of the city,” he told the <b><i>Star</i></b>. “All the things that were important to me. I wanted my daughter to understand how her father related to the city and have her relate to the city.” After he was elected to city council three years later, Vaughan advocated a 10 per cent requirement for three-bedroom units in developments to aid families experiencing problems with finding enough space to live in. Developers shot back that they had trouble competing with suburban projects on price, which meant the larger units were often among the last to sell.<br /><br />Doug Holyday’s long-held views on where families should live, and his belief in the supremacy of market forces on determining housing stock, shouldn’t make his most recent comments a surprise. As an Etobicoke alderman in the mid-1980s, he opposed that city’s proposals to limit the number of apartment buildings that were designated for adult occupancy only. In a period where vacancy rates were low, families looking for apartments in Etobicoke—especially those with lower incomes—sometimes settled for sub-par dwellings as one landlord after another rejected their applications. Holyday blamed provincial rent controls, and housing activists who he felt exaggerated the problems that tenants faced.<br /><br />His views didn’t win the day, as the provincial government banned adult-only apartment buildings (apart from seniors’ complexes and structures with four units or less) in December 1986. Holyday’s hate-on for rent controls didn’t fade—when Toronto city council voted in April 1999 to establish a task force to make the restoration of controls scrapped by Premier Mike Harris’s government an issue during the next provincial election, Holyday was the lone councillor to oppose the motion.<br /><br /><i>Additional material from the March 5, 1985, May 6, 1985, and May 14, 1985 editions of the <b>Globe and Mail</b>, and the May 11, 2003 and June 26, 2008 editions of the <b>Toronto Star</b>.</i>http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/07/off-grid-retro-to-family-living.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-3960618029575551105Mon, 29 Jun 2015 15:49:00 +00002015-06-29T11:50:04.666-04:00foodfran'shistoryla cantinettaoff the gridpeter pan restauranttippingtorontowindsor arms hoteloff the grid: retro t.o. tip-toeing around tipping<i>This installment of my "Retro T.O." column for <b>The Grid</b> was originally published on August 14, 2012.</i><br /><i><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/19262545542" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="ts 79-07-11 tipping by Jamie, on Flickr"><img alt="ts 79-07-11 tipping" height="640" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/315/19262545542_1e22528dfc_z.jpg" width="498" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, July 11, 1979. Click on image for larger version.</i></td></tr></tbody></table></i><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i><i></i></i></div>“Tipping is a questionable practice,” began a July 1979 <b><i>Star</i></b> editorial, “but as long as it remains a factor in determining the wages of restaurant employees in Ontario, everything should be done to ensure they receive the tips they’re entitled to.” Issues surrounding tipping—including surveys regarding the public’s bill-topping habits and concerns among servers about proper tip distribution—were highlighted by the paper that month, though many of the issues discussed remain contentious.<br /><br />The spring of 1979 saw several labour grievances launched by angry servers at downtown bars and restaurants. Arbitration ended the El Mocambo’s policy of requiring bartenders to pay back one per cent of total booze sales during their shift to their managers; less successful were waiters at Noodles restaurant at Bloor and Bay and the Courtyard Café in the Windsor Arms Hotel. The sister eateries employed a percentage-of-sales tip distribution system where waiters paid two-and-a-half per cent of the night’s sales to the maître d’, up to two per cent to busboys, and five dollars a week to the bartender. Servers filed a grievance through the Canadian Food and Associated Services Union, objecting to the maître d’s cut, which often wound up being 20 per cent of the tips they would have received. Management countered that the front-of-house staff were essential to good service by setting the tone, greeting guests, and providing general assistance. According to Windsor Arms food and beverage manager Frank Falgaux, “when you tip you feel you are paying the waiter. But if everything was good then all those people contributed. A tip is really for the team that makes the whole dining room.” The arbitrator agreed with management.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/19262545832" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="gm 79-05-15 tipping 2 by Jamie, on Flickr"><img alt="gm 79-05-15 tipping 2" height="278" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/378/19262545832_5121360610.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Globe and Mail</b>, May 15, 1979.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Servers at some establishments also found themselves saddled with the responsibility for paying credit-card transaction fees that their bosses wouldn’t absorb on their own. Management at Sherlock’s on Sheppard Street explained that the practice allowed the server to pay their part of “the expenses involved in collecting for the charge account” rather than passing the fee directly onto customers. Combined with other cuts, Sherlock’s waitress Sybil Walker estimated that, out of a weekly gross of up to $300 she earned in tips, up to $120 was passed on to others—a significant loss given that minimum wage for servers back then was $2.50 per hour.<br /><br />While many diners automatically paid the standard 15 to 20 per cent tip during the summer of 1979, Bardi’s Steak House owner and Canadian Restaurant Association president Alex Manikas suggested they should be more discerning. “A waiter who greets you cheerfully and is genuinely attentive warrants a bigger gratuity than the cold, proper automaton in white gloves,” he told the <b><i>Star</i></b>. But that philosophy didn’t occur to difficult customers. In an incident at the Peter Pan on Queen Street West, a customer who occupied a prime table during peak dining hours with his girlfriend to enjoy a bottle of wine and carrot cake left the change he received from server Hillary Kelly for his $9.98 bill—two pennies. When she asked why he was “so tight,” he responded, “because I’m a socialist. I don’t believe in tipping.” Kelly told him that she was a worker and he had insulted her efforts. She threw the tip back at him and the rest of the restaurant cheered as he departed in a huff.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/19272379551" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="ts 79-08-23 slicing tips by Jamie, on Flickr"><img alt="ts 79-08-23 slicing tips" height="354" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3948/19272379551_3e13a86ab8.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, August 23, 1979. Click on image for larger version.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>As for the secret of receiving generous tips, Fran’s waitress supervisor Jessie Logan suggested “catering to the whims of a regular customer, no matter how eccentric they may seem.” She recalled a diner at the chain’s St. Clair location, “a quiet, well-dressed man in his 30s,” who dropped by nightly to order a meal current health authorities would pounce on in a second: a raw hamburger accompanied by a glass of milk with a whole egg (including the shell) placed in it. “The bill would come to less than two bucks. You know what he would tip me? No less than $5 and up to $35 per night. They don’t make great, loony tippers like that anymore.”<br /><br />There had been an effort to form a waiters association to replace tipping with a flat 15 per cent service charge a la several European countries, but it fizzled when employers balked. Not that all restaurant owners were opposed—La Cantinetta owner Luigi Orgera, who had servers at his King Street restaurant place their tips in a pool, felt a service charge would allow waiters to receive higher pay and equalize generous and miserly tippers. He believed that “the pay would be better so we could attract a better staff.”<br /><br />But tipping—and the controversies surrounding it—remain with us, as demonstrated by a recent private member’s bill from Beaches-East York MPP Michael Prue to forbid management from taking a share of tips.<br /><br /><i>Additional material from the May 15, 1979, edition of the <b>Globe and Mail</b>, and the July 11, 1979, and July 16, 1979, editions of the <b>Toronto Star</b>.</i>http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/06/off-grid-retro-to-tip-toeing-around.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-3438291039334913514Tue, 23 Jun 2015 14:19:00 +00002015-06-23T10:29:17.863-04:00historyoff the gridpridest. charles taverntorontooff the grid: ghost city 484-488 yonge street<i>From 2012 to 2014 I contributed to <b>The Grid</b>. The following piece was my final "Ghost City" column, published June 25, 2013.</i><br /><i><br /></i><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yHQNdFXOzKw/VYlpPl-kJWI/AAAAAAAABfg/WbvRca7OIgs/s1600/st%2Bcharles%2B1955.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yHQNdFXOzKw/VYlpPl-kJWI/AAAAAAAABfg/WbvRca7OIgs/s1600/st%2Bcharles%2B1955.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>St. Charles Tavern, 1955. Photo by James Salmon. Toronto Public Library.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>For a spot later known for fiery confrontations, perhaps it’s fitting that the clock tower above 484-488 Yonge St. originally watched over horse-drawn fire engines emerging from the building below. The structure served as Fire Hall Number Three from the early 1870s until the late 1920s; after the fire department moved around the corner to Grosvenor Street, the old hall was occupied by furniture stores, car dealers, and a cycle shop.<br /><br />In 1950, the St. Charles Restaurant opened at the site with the slogan “meet me under the clock.” Its colourful owner, Charles Hemstead, worked his way up from a newsboy at the corner of King and Bathurst to a real-estate wheeler-dealer. Though he owned hotels and sold rural properties that turned into developments like Mississauga’s Dixie Plaza, his heart belonged to the racetrack. Described by the <b><i>Globe and Mail</i></b> as a guy who wore “finely tailored suits and a diamond horseshoe stickpin and a ring worth $6,000,” Hemstead had corralled a stable of horses that included 1943 King’s Plate (as the Queen’s Plate was then known) victor Paolita.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0LKx7PC83Mw/VYlp3d9D3iI/AAAAAAAABf4/8aqBIRwKlmU/s1600/ts%2B50-08-17%2Boriental%2Broom%2Bad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0LKx7PC83Mw/VYlp3d9D3iI/AAAAAAAABf4/8aqBIRwKlmU/s1600/ts%2B50-08-17%2Boriental%2Broom%2Bad.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, August 17, 1950.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Alongside the typical steak-and-seafood menu served by eateries with classy aspirations, the St. Charles offered Chinese dishes in its “Oriental Room.” Within a few years, a second location opened at the Canadian National Exhibition to serve hungry fairgoers. That location was destroyed by a fire in January 1961, one of a series of setbacks whose stresses likely contributed to Hemstead’s fatal heart attack later that month.<br /><br />During the 1960s, the St. Charles Tavern, as it was then known, developed a reputation as a gay hangout. By 1966, it advertised a “Call Me Miss-Ter Revue” showcase of exotic dancers and female impersonators. Along with nearby bars like the Parkside, the St. Charles became part of a new Yonge Street Hallowe’en tradition of costume balls. Laws outlawing the donning of the opposite gender’s clothes tended to relax on Oct. 31, providing an opportunity for drag queens to strut their stuff. Crowds gathered along Yonge Street between Wellesley and College to watch, as the <b><i>Star</i></b> termed it in 1969, “the procession of fabulous female-creatures-who-aren’t.”<br /><br />Onlookers <a href="http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.ca/2013/06/bonus-features-484-488-yonge-street.html" target="_blank">treated the annual procession as a freak show</a>, an attitude that grew uglier as the 1970s progressed. Those entering the St. Charles in drag on Hallowe’en were pelted with eggs and ink, ruining outfits some had worked on for a year. Chants of “kill the queers” emerged from the crowd. Radio stations encouraged people to head down to Yonge Street to join the mob of up to 5,000 people. Media treated it as a light-hearted event, rarely tackling the hate that spewed out. Police looked the other way when violence broke out.<br /><br />Fears heightened in 1977 after the sexual assault and murder of shoeshine boy Emanuel Jaques increased vitriol against homosexuals. Community groups like the Gay Alliance Toward Equality (GATE) urged police to crack down on the Hallowe’en hate mob. When police officials suggested the best course of action was to stay away from the St. Charles, politicians including St. George MPP Margaret Campbell and Mayor David Crombie urged the force to provide adequate protection. GATE and the Metropolitan Community Church launched Operation Jack o’ Lantern to provide escorts for anyone feeling threatened on Hallowe’en night.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q6sbjkORdJQ/UcnuHcRZsXI/AAAAAAAAAqQ/LUD0GxXneQY/s1600/gm-79-11-01-egging.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="305" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q6sbjkORdJQ/UcnuHcRZsXI/AAAAAAAAAqQ/LUD0GxXneQY/s400/gm-79-11-01-egging.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Globe and Mail</b>, November 1, 1979. Click on image for larger version.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>At first, police failed to live up to promises to curb the mob, allowing it to form for several more years. Participants at the St. Charles ball entered via the back door. Reports of back alley and side-street bashings increased. The ugly attitude of the gatherings was personified by a 21-year old woman interviewed by the <b><i>Globe and Mail</i></b> on Hallowe’en 1979. “It’s great, because everybody’s so friendly, right? Except if you’re a faggot—that’s different.” The woman said she was there to egg anyone she thought was gay; the paper didn’t mention if she was among the 103 people arrested that night.<br /><br />“The events of October 31 are a civic disgrace, and should be a source of shame to every citizen of the city,” declared an editorial in the gay journal <b><i>The Body Politic</i></b> on the eve of Hallowe’en 1980. “Every citizen, every elected official should share every gay person’s dismay at having to face, each year, a night of humiliation and hate. A night that is passed over in silence, that has drawn no criticism, no condemnation, that has not moved one single elected official to say, ‘This is appalling and disgraceful. This must be stopped.’ It is in the interests of the entire city of Toronto that the city lose its reputation, both here and abroad, for allowing a night of anti-gay bigotry unparalleled in any other city in Canada.”<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ay8RBQxKKYg/UcnsdGGBxGI/AAAAAAAAAp4/ALlSX2mXGvI/s1600/sun-77-11-01-front-page-but-officer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="390" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ay8RBQxKKYg/UcnsdGGBxGI/AAAAAAAAAp4/ALlSX2mXGvI/s400/sun-77-11-01-front-page-but-officer.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Sun</b>, November 1, 1977. Click on image for larger version.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Though police rejected a proposal to block the St. Charles with a convoy of garbage trucks in 1980, they erected metal barriers along Yonge Street’s east sidewalk and prevented anyone from stopping to gawk or jeer. They discouraged media from urging listeners to congregate along Yonge, and asked local merchants to sell eggs to regular customers only. “There were so many officers on Yonge Street,” observed <b><i>The Body Politic</i></b>’s Gerald Hannon, “it was beginning to look like a replay of the October Crisis.” Those hoping to lob eggs were disappointed—“this place sucks.”<br /><br />The peace was maintained the following Hallowe’en, despite jeering attempts from a few yahoos and barbs in the <b><i>Toronto Sun</i></b> (“It’s a special night for these homosexuals, the people who dress up every night of the year”). The annual onslaught of hate gradually faded as Hallowe’en celebrations shifted over to Church Street and evolved into a crowded block party where revellers from across Toronto showed off their costumes.<br /><br />Though it ranked among the top 10 sellers of draught beer in the city in the early 1980s, the St. Charles Tavern closed around Christmas 1987. Various retailers filled the space over the years—current tenants include an electronics store, a music shop, and a sushi joint. The decaying, pigeon poop-clogged clock tower, whose hands were stuck at 12 for years, was renovated after Joseph Bogoroch bought the property in 2002. With a fresh coat of paint, it stands proud above Yonge Street.<br /><br /><i>Additional material from the December 1977-January 1978, December 1979, October 1980, and December 1980-January 1981 editions of <b>The Body Politic</b>; the January 17, 1961, January 18, 1961, October 28, 1977, and November 1, 1979 editions of the <b>Globe and Mail</b>; the January 26, 1966, October 31, 1969, November 1, 1979, October 21, 1980, and November 5, 2002 editions of the <b>Toronto Star</b>; and the November 1, 1981 edition of the <b>Toronto Sun</b>.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>I also prepared bonus features for this article, which you can find <a href="http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.ca/2013/06/bonus-features-484-488-yonge-street.html" target="_blank">via this link</a>, which covers in further detail the death of Charles Hemstead, and the scene on Hallowe'en.</i>http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/06/off-grid-ghost-city-484-488-yonge-street.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-6240994479862987913Sat, 20 Jun 2015 15:10:00 +00002015-06-20T11:12:43.075-04:001970shistoryoff the gridpeter pan restaurantqueen streettorontooff the grid: retro t.o. the birth of queen street west<i>This installment of my "Retro T.O." column for <b>The Grid</b> was originally published on April 17, 2012.</i><br /><i><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/18802126239" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="ts 79-02-03 transforming queen west 1 by Jamie, on Flickr"><img alt="ts 79-02-03 transforming queen west 1" height="805" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/386/18802126239_5d795f52e5_o.jpg" width="440" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, February 2, 1979.</i></td></tr></tbody></table></i><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i><i></i></i></div>With Silver Snail’s impending move to Yonge Street, one of the few remnants of the original Queen West strip is departing the scene. The ongoing transformation of the stretch between University and Spadina into a row of chain stores is just the latest evolution of the street. Back in the winter of 1979, the <i><b>Star</b></i> and <i><b>Toronto Life</b></i> devoted lengthy articles to the birth of what would become, as one headline put it, “gutter glamour on Glitter Street.”<br /><br />The <i><b>Star</b></i> depicted pre-hip Queen West as such:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Six years ago, the unwary Saturday afternoon browser who slipped off Yonge St. on to Queen St. W. unwittingly fell off the edge of the known shopping world. At that time, deepest darkest Queen St. W.—notably the few blocks between John St. and Spadina—had little to offer the inquisitive, well-heeled young shopper with money to spend. There were the old, antique shops, the porno shops and the Turner Wine Store at the corner of John and Queen with its down-at-heel clientele of listless, hungry men, the greasy spoons, office buildings and machine shops. Even the more adventurous would go scurrying back to Yonge St. or north to Bloor, with its classy, high-priced Yorkville.</blockquote><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/18988328055" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="ts 79-02-03 transforming queen west 2 by Jamie, on Flickr"><img alt="ts 79-02-03 transforming queen west 2" height="640" src="https://c4.staticflickr.com/4/3834/18988328055_8a06120ea0_z.jpg" width="442" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, February 2, 1979. Click on image for larger version.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i></i></b></div><b><i>Toronto Life</i></b> characterized the area as a marginal strip on the fringes of the clothing trade, where the streetscape was “inhabited by transient winos and the ethnics who had failed to prosper in the new country, ‘old-country good-for-nothings’ in the eyes of their more successful compatriots.”<br /><br />Several explanations were given for why the landscape changed. There was the influence of Ontario College of Art graduates who stayed in the neighbourhood. Rent was far lower than in Yorkville, which provided better profit margins for the new business owners whose average age was 30 to 35. There was the allure of nearby cultural attractions like the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Royal Alex. Frequent streetcar service and plenty of on- and off-street parking didn’t hurt.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SY6wNmJ4jlQ/VYWBomqr7yI/AAAAAAAABfE/sht5LBHSjZg/s1600/f1526_fl0076_it0029queenstpatrick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SY6wNmJ4jlQ/VYWBomqr7yI/AAAAAAAABfE/sht5LBHSjZg/s400/f1526_fl0076_it0029queenstpatrick.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Queen Street looking west from St. Patrick's Market, June 7, 1981. Photo by Harvey R. Naylor. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1526, &nbsp;File 76, Item 29. Click on image for larger version.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>The result, according to the <b><i>Star</i></b>, was a neighbourhood where “the spirit of trend” had “raised her elegant skirts” and nestled “among scores of bright, funky craft stores, highbrow art book and comic book shops, new antique emporiums, elegant eateries and purveyors of the crazy, imaginative baubles that attract the moneyed restless.” A few reminders of the old days, like the A. Stork and Sons poultry store and a touch of industrial pollution, lingered on.<br /><br />Both articles viewed the refurbishment of the Peter Pan restaurant as the turning point for the strip. With a history as an eatery stretching back to 1905 (and under its present name since 1935), the diner at 373 Queen St. W. attracted three partners who discovered old booths, counters, and fixtures gathering dust in the basement. After a refurbishment, the new Peter Pan was, according to the <b><i>Star</i></b>, “an art deco wonderland, a smash hit with the city’s young affluent.” That is, it was a hit if you could stand the servers, who Toronto Life declared the representative figure of the new Queen West (“the narcissistic waiter who’s in a punk band”).<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8qUaVN05FRc/VYWCHm6-woI/AAAAAAAABfM/cmx-c6C26yA/s1600/f1526_fl0076_it0030queenbeverley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="270" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8qUaVN05FRc/VYWCHm6-woI/AAAAAAAABfM/cmx-c6C26yA/s400/f1526_fl0076_it0030queenbeverley.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Queen Street looking west from Beverley Street, June 7, 1981. Photo by Harvey R. Naylor. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1526, &nbsp;File 76, Item 30. Click on image for larger version.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Of the 27 businesses listed in the <b><i>Star</i></b>’s “Where to shop in new village” guide and a few others included on a map, only four will continue on Queen West following Silver Snail’s departure: the Black Bull, Peter Pan, the Queen Mother Café and Steve’s Music Store. Even in 1979, merchants worried about the street’s future. “I don’t want too much change in the original street,” noted Peter Pan co-owner Sandy Stagg. “Change will come, I know. I just hope we can keep it under control.”<br /><br /><i>Additional material from the February 2, 1979 edition of the <b>Toronto Star</b> and the March 1979 edition of <b>Toronto Life</b>.</i>http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/06/off-grid-retro-to-birth-of-queen-street.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-404007198225139706Thu, 18 Jun 2015 15:08:00 +00002015-06-18T11:08:49.077-04:00art eggletonfrederick gardinergardiner expresswayhistoryhoward moscoejohn barberpaul godfreypoliticssam casstorontotoronto city counciloff the grid: retro t.o. burying the gardiner<i>This installment of my "Retro T.O." column for <b>The Grid</b> was originally published on July 24, 2012. And, as we predicted, people <a href="http://torontoist.com/2015/06/live-blog-council-debates-the-east-gardiner/" target="_blank">are still devising burial plans</a> for the Gardiner.</i><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nO0rGssgX3s/VYLdL8opxHI/AAAAAAAABec/Iohq7Pt4kPs/s1600/gardinerconstructionjarvis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nO0rGssgX3s/VYLdL8opxHI/AAAAAAAABec/Iohq7Pt4kPs/s1600/gardinerconstructionjarvis.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Jarvis Street, east side, looking northeast from Lake Shore Boulevard East, showing Gardiner Expressway under construction, 1963. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1257, Series 1057, Item 5603.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>“I’ve looked at this darn thing from one end to the other and I can’t think of anything I would like to change.” Frederick Gardiner’s verdict on <a href="http://torontoist.com/2014/02/goin-down-the-gardiner-expressway/" target="_blank">the expressway that would bear his name</a> was not one future municipal officials shared. Within a decade-and-a-half of the Gardiner’s completion in 1965, grumblings arose from City Hall that the elevated section through the core should be knocked down. Like clockwork, every few years a plan to bury or replace the freeway emerges. Each plan is initially greeted with relief that the waterfront will soon be rid of what many people have perceived as an eyesore and barrier. Just as predictable is the backlash, which usually involves fears about runaway costs and traffic Armageddon during construction. Given the current crumbling state of the Gardiner, somebody is devising a new burial plan as you read these words.<br /><br />One of the first serious contemplations to tear the sucker down came in the fall of 1983, when Toronto Mayor Art Eggleton asked city staff to investigate burying the Gardiner. Eggleton was supported by Metro Toronto Chairman Paul Godfrey, who saw a golden opportunity for a new route through the not-yet-redeveloped railways lands to the north. Godfrey justifiably feared that “with all the bureaucracy and red tape involved in putting a roadway of that magnitude through, I really wonder whether we’ll all be alive to see it, even if all the money is available.”<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q_Mp525SGkk/VYLdkHjIYOI/AAAAAAAABek/TwlFtMw_Qfc/s1600/ts%2B83-09-30%2Bbury%2Bthe%2Bgardiner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q_Mp525SGkk/VYLdkHjIYOI/AAAAAAAABek/TwlFtMw_Qfc/s1600/ts%2B83-09-30%2Bbury%2Bthe%2Bgardiner.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, September 30, 1983.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>The opportunity to use the railway lands soon evaporated, but other ideas abounded. City planning commissioner Stephen McLaughlin described to the <b><i>Star</i></b> three plans submitted to the city: “modest” ($25 million to demolish the Jarvis and York ramps and build a new exit at an extended Simcoe Street); “grand” (place the Gardiner in a trench or tunnel between Bathurst and Jarvis); and “visionary” (for $1 billion or so, re-route the Gardiner into a tunnel under Lake Ontario).<br /><br />Such plans were hooey to Sam Cass, Metro roads and traffic commissioner, and staunch defender of the Gardiner. Cass, who was still promoting the completion of the Spadina Expressway in 1983, called the Gardiner “a beautiful structure that’s still doing what it was designed to do.” While we won’t quibble with Cass over aesthetics such as the view of the city skyline while cruising along in open traffic, his contention that maintaining it wouldn’t cost much proved incorrect. Cass boasted that the Gardiner required no repair during its first decade-and-a-half and figured once a modestly priced five-year program to fix salt damage was completed, the elevated section wouldn’t require further repair for a quarter-century. Given Cass’s math, the Gardiner is crumbling on schedule.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QMARwis7Igc/VYLd1VII-HI/AAAAAAAABes/kFHs0zr-4nM/s1600/ts%2B88-01-20%2Bastra%2Bburka%2Bon%2Bgardiner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QMARwis7Igc/VYLd1VII-HI/AAAAAAAABes/kFHs0zr-4nM/s400/ts%2B88-01-20%2Bastra%2Bburka%2Bon%2Bgardiner.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, January 20, 1988. Click on image for larger version.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>As annual repairs became a reality, calls for the Gardiner’s burial increased, especially as other cities contemplated demolishing their elevated highways. In a lengthy 1988 piece on why the Gardiner should come down, the <b><i>Globe and Mail</i></b>’s John Barber likened it to a Cadillac in a scrapyard. As chunks of concrete fell and its steel skeleton rusted, Barber declared “the highway that began life as a heroic symbol of the city’s progress is now just an overflowing traffic sewer.”<br /><br />Among those Barber spoke with about alternative options was developer William Teron, whose company was covering over a section of the Boulevard Périphérique in Paris. Bringing his plan to municipal officials in 1990, Teron proposed an eight-lane Gardiner buried along the waterfront and a revamped, landscaped Lake Shore Boulevard. He promised to deliver the highway in less than three years and cover the $1 billion cost in exchange for development rights for housing and offices along the Gardiner’s former route, which Teron figured would recoup his costs. Naysayers included Metro traffic officials, who warned of cost overruns, overstatement of green space, massive traffic tie-ups during construction, and disruptions to TTC service.<br /><br />Teron’s plan went nowhere, as did the succession of proposals that arose over the next two decades. Visions of a buried Gardiner emerging from both City Hall and various task forces and waterfront authorities came and went, scuttled by fears over cost, voter reaction to tolls, watching the extended Big Dig in Boston, and complacency. Among our favourite quotes was councillor Howard Moscoe’s reaction to a 1999 proposal where the builders of the 407 ETR would have managed a $2 toll per trip to drive through a tunnel: “a truly a pie-in-the-ground proposal.” As experts and city officials are confident there’s no danger of total collapse anytime soon, odds are good everyone will enjoy the elevated section for a long time to come. Once the concrete is shored up perhaps another recurring plan for the Gardiner will re-emerge: building attractions and/or businesses under it.<br /><br /><i>Additional material from the October 28, 1988 edition of the <b>Globe and Mail</b>, the February 9, 1999 edition of the <b>National Post</b>, and the September 30, 1983, September 13, 1989, April 24, 1990, and July 15, 2000 editions of the <b>Toronto Star</b>.</i>http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/06/off-grid-retro-to-burying-gardiner.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-9146151920092404400Wed, 17 Jun 2015 14:54:00 +00002015-06-18T10:55:02.302-04:001990sadam vaughanhistorymediamel lastmanpoliticstorontotoronto city counciloff the grid: retro t.o. mel lastman vs. adam vaughan<i>This installment of my "Retro T.O." column for <b>The Grid</b> was originally published on May 8, 2012.</i><br /><br />Shortly after becoming mayor of Toronto, Mel Lastman was asked if he worried about his wife Marilyn’s verbal snafus. “All the time,” he said. “But I find it cute and if people don’t like it, too bad.” The same could be said of Mel’s odd outbursts, yet few found it cute when Lastman uttered a death threat against CBC reporter (and current city councillor) Adam Vaughan in May 1999.<br /><br />Thanks to a police leak, it was an open secret among City Hall reporters that Marilyn Lastman was caught shoplifting a $155 pair of designer pants at the Promenade Mall Eaton’s on April 19, 1999. According to the police report no charges were laid “due to her age as well as no outstanding offences on her record.” Sources close to Marilyn believed the pressures of Mel’s job had resulted in depression and prescription drug use. The incident was kept quiet until the satirical magazine Frank published a story that declined to name either Lastman.<br /><br />When some city councillors indicated that Vaughan, who had a testy relationship with the mayor, was sniffing around the shoplifting incident, Lastman assumed he was behind the Frank piece. On May 11, 1999, Lastman noticed Vaughan talking with councillor Kyle Rae in the council chamber and angrily approached him. “Before I could say anything,” Vaughan told the Star, “he burst in on me and said, ‘I’ve heard you’ve been talking about my wife. Stop talking about my wife. Leave my family alone. If you don’t leave them alone, I’ll kill you. I’ll write every letter I have to to the CBC to get you fired. Do you understand?’” The outburst earned stunned looks around the chamber. “No one likes being threatened, especially with death and firing,” noted Vaughan. “It shakes you up a bit.”<br /><br />Lastman issued an apology to Vaughan later that day. The letter noted that “it was improper to have a private conversation with you in a public place. It was also a conversation inappropriate in tone and language. If you have been offended by our conversation then I am sorry for my words. I would like to sit down in private with you to apologize in person and to have an appropriate private discussion about the difficulties we have had.” That night, <b><i>Star</i></b> publisher John Honderich called Lastman to indicate that the paper would publish the shoplifting incident the following day.<br /><br />Several city councillors defended Lastman, citing his recent stresses. Doug Holyday felt sympathetic toward the mayor’s problems and indicated he wouldn’t question the outburst. Brian Ashton determined that Lastman’s threat was no worse than “what schoolyard kids might do, or you might say when you stub your toe in the workroom.” Budget chief Tom Jakobek believed that the threat would not reflect negatively on the city, despite it being “not a good call on his part.” Rob Davis, who claimed he was asked by Vaughan about Lastman’s family, believed that Vaughan had not taken “the most appropriate action for reporters.” On the other hand, the <b><i>Toronto Sun</i></b>, one of Lastman’s staunchest defenders, criticized his outburst. “What Lastman did was wrong in public or in private,” noted a May 13, 1999 editorial. “If he can’t see why, he might want to reassess his future in public life.”<br /><br />Following the incident, the Lastmans spent two weeks in Florida. When he returned, the mayor attacked Toronto’s media for being a pack of liars, pointing to Vaughan and his father, CityTV reporter Colin Vaughan, as among the most negative of the bunch. In the long run, Lastman’s relationship with the media deteriorated so much that the <b><i>Sun</i></b>, which once dropped Don Wanagas as a columnist for criticizing the mayor, allowed Sue-Ann Levy to mock him. As the <b><i>Globe and Mail</i></b>’s John Barber wrote when Lastman declined to run for another term in 2003, open contempt of the media “became one of the hallmarks of his reign—and reciprocal feelings among once-fawning journalists helped considerably to shorten it.”<br /><br /><i>Additional material from the May 12, 1999, May 13, 1999, and January 16, 2003 editions of the <b>Globe and Mail</b>; the May 14, 1999 edition of the <b>National Post</b>; the May 12, 1999, May 13, 1999, and June 15, 1999 editions of the <b>Toronto Star</b>; and the May 13, 1999 edition of the <b>Toronto Sun</b>.</i>http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/06/off-grid-retro-to-mel-lastman-vs-adam.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-2352541743505410406Thu, 11 Jun 2015 19:03:00 +00002015-06-11T15:03:52.108-04:001980sexhibition placehistoryindymolson indyroy orbisontorontooff the grid: retro t.o. the first indy<i>This installment of my "Retro T.O." column for <b>The Grid</b> was originally published on July 10, 2012.</i><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fxugFO3K_Sk/VXnay29YqjI/AAAAAAAABd8/YNi_TOQVY2s/s1600/ts%2B86-05-08%2Bpaving%2Bwork%2Bfor%2Bindy%2Bcars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fxugFO3K_Sk/VXnay29YqjI/AAAAAAAABd8/YNi_TOQVY2s/s1600/ts%2B86-05-08%2Bpaving%2Bwork%2Bfor%2Bindy%2Bcars.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, May 8, 1986</i></td></tr></tbody></table>“The most expensive beer commercial in Canadian history unfolds this weekend on the grounds of Toronto’s Exhibition Place,” observed the <i><b>Globe and Mail’</b></i>s Stephen Brunt on the eve of the first Molson Indy a quarter of a century ago. At stake for the brewer were $50 million worth of insurance and the wrath of Parkdale residents petrified that their neighbourhood would be left in shambles.<br /><br />As back as the late 1960s, several attempts were made to bring a major auto race to central Toronto. Efforts in the late 1970s to hold races at Exhibition Place met fierce opposition from a Parkdale-centric citizens group known as the Anti-Grand Prix Coalition (AGPC) and city councillors like John Sewell (“it’s a stupid idea”). The AGPC reformed in the spring of 1985 when a proposal from Molson to run a CART Indy-car race gained momentum. As AGPC chair Susan Shaw told the press, “We put up a good fight then and we’re going to put up a good fight now.”<br /><br />As in the 1970s, the AGPC feared the garbage, noise, pollution, and vandalism such an event could bring. While they failed to stop the race (which apparently raised cheers among some Parkdalians who saw it as a boon to the neighbourhood), AGPC succeeded in having the city address their concerns. Toronto City Council approved the race by two votes in July 1985 with several conditions attached: capping attendance at 60,000, a detailed traffic plan, tight noise controls, and the formation of a committee consisting of municipal and Molson officials, police, Parkdalians, and the TTC to oversee the event. Molson received permission for one year to run the race and was responsible for any resurfacing costs.<br /><br />For two weeks in May 1986, there was a jurisdictional spat between CART and international sanctioning body FISA (Fédération Internationale de Sport Automobile), from which it split away in the late 1970s. FISA ordered its Canadian affiliate CASC (Canadian Automobile Sports Clubs) not to sanction the race and suspend any member drivers who participated. Once threats of legal action ended that tantrum, the operators of the Indianapolis 500 received a temporary injunction from the Supreme Court of Ontario prohibiting Molson from using the term “Indy” in event advertising. A week before the race, the court ruled in favour of Molson as it wasn’t satisfied that the Indianapolis Speedway would suffer irreparable brand damage and had used the “Indy” name for other Canadian races.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-67xe1B5qAQ4/VXnbMGJllYI/AAAAAAAABeE/D6GY1ySsP9Q/s1600/gm%2B86-07-18%2Bontario%2Bplace%2Bindy%2Bad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-67xe1B5qAQ4/VXnbMGJllYI/AAAAAAAABeE/D6GY1ySsP9Q/s1600/gm%2B86-07-18%2Bontario%2Bplace%2Bindy%2Bad.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Globe and Mail</b>, July 18, 1986</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Back in Parkdale, residents prepared themselves for the three-day event, which began on July 18, 1986. The AGPC was satisfied with the consultations they had with the City and Molson but kept their guard up. One benefit quickly pleased them: the special attention police paid to illegal parkers. With only 3,000 spots available near the course, there were nightmares regarding traffic chaos despite pleas from race organizers to take transit. Over Indy weekend, 280 vehicles were towed away, mostly to a temporary lot on Abell Street.<br /><br />Though residents were given a public-works hotline for complaints, it stayed cool. While there were complaints about noise and naughty patrons, the weekend went smoothly. Though the hum of Indy cars bounced off apartment buildings, an army of decibel meters revealed levels no worse than passing buses—AGPC official Bart Poesiat admitted to the <i><b>Star</b></i> that the race was less sonically disruptive than the annual CHIN picnic. Some residents profited by renting out their driveways and yards as parking spots, with rates as high as $10 per vehicle along Tyndall Avenue.<br /><br />Apart from long waits by spectators to use the walkway to reach the inner section of the track and a first-lap exit by Canadian driver Jacques Villeneuve, the first Molson Indy was viewed as a success. Before the drivers started their engines on July 20, Roy Orbison sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Though Emerson Fittipaldi earned the pole position and Danny Sullivan was coming off two CART victories in a row, the winner was Indianapolis 500 champ Bobby Rahal. Despite a lengthy penalty for passing the pace car on his way out of a pit stop, Rahal, who found the course “fun to drive,” flirted with the lead several times before taking it for keeps with only 12 laps left in the race. The worst injury was a broken ankle suffered by Mike Nish, though the Jaws of Life were required to extract him from his crashed vehicle near the Princes’ Gate.<br /><br />The positive feelings participants felt toward the event were summed up by race car owner Roger Penske. “The people behind this track have done a tremendous job in putting it together and promoting the race,” he told the <i><b>Star</b></i>. “I just hope the people in Toronto realize what they have and that’s something special.”<br /><br /><i>Additional material from the November 1, 1977, June 13, 1985, July 17, 1986, and July 19, 1986 editions of the <b>Globe and Mail</b>, and the July 16, 1985, May 4, 1986, July 12, 1986, July 19, 1986, and July 21, 1986 editions of the <b>Toronto Star</b>.</i>http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/06/off-grid-retro-to-first-indy.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-8831770376909372190Tue, 26 May 2015 12:59:00 +00002015-05-26T08:59:18.887-04:001980sbloor street dinercourtyard cafefoodhamburgersjim whitelick'smr. greenjeansoff the gridtoby's good eatstorontowimpy awardsoff the grid: retro t.o. the wimpy awards<i>This installment of my "Retro T.O." column for <b>The Grid</b> was originally published on March 27, 2012. The number of burger joints, especially those with gourmet aspirations, has continued to rise since this piece was originally published. There's even a website (<a href="http://tastyburgers.ca/">Tasty Burgers</a>) dedicated to review the GTA's purveyors of ground round, or whatever they're tossing in the burgers these days.&nbsp;</i><br /><i><br /></i><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hlRKwhFskvc/VWRtAiWD1bI/AAAAAAAABdU/Bd5j_03jNJU/s1600/wimpyimage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hlRKwhFskvc/VWRtAiWD1bI/AAAAAAAABdU/Bd5j_03jNJU/s1600/wimpyimage.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Illustration by Patrick Corrigan. <b>Toronto Star</b>, March 16, 1983.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>It’s safe to say Toronto is currently hamburger crazy. Whether you prefer going to an old-school burger joint that retains its 1960s-era appearance, testing a highbrow patty made with gourmet ingredients, or joining the never-ending lineups at The Burger’s Priest, Toronto has rediscovered its love for a slab of ground meat loaded with every topping imaginable (though you still can’t get lettuce at Johnny’s in Scarborough).<br /><br />Back in March of 1983, <i><b>Toronto Star</b></i> food writer Jim White felt the local burger scene needed recognition. Noting that there were so many awards for the arts, White jokingly told readers that to correct a “cultural imbalance,” the paper was launching a series of articles to hand out Oscar-style statuettes to worthy local eateries. To honour Toronto’s best burgers, White devised the Wimpy Awards, which honoured Popeye’s gluttonous pal.<br /><br />White’s criteria for the Wimpys ruled out “anything pre-fab, served by clowns or named after someone like Harvey or Wendy.” Though he intended to focus on the burger alone, White discovered that “the décor, background music, and ambience of a burger joint can be just as important as the product.” As a control measure, a basic burger and fries were ordered at each restaurant in the competition, as “the quality of French fries colours one’s impression of the burger.”<br /><br />Some winners from the Wimpy Awards, presented with little fanfare on March 16, 1983:<br /><br /><b><i>Best Burger for the Buck</i></b>: the original location of Lick’s in the Beaches, then a narrow eatery with long lines, two tables, and six stools. For only $1.95, Lick’s served large burgers that White described as “superb and perfectly charbroiled.” He noted that “the only thing missing in this setting is John Belushi shouting ‘Cheezeburgah…cheezeburgah.’” No mention as to whether the chain’s singing schtick was already in place.<br /><br /><b><i>Most Expensive Burger in Toronto</i></b>: For $10, patrons of the Courtyard Café at the Windsor Arms Hotel received a loosely packed patty served with a truffle-tinged artichoke, purposely-undercooked chips, and a bland tomato tart.<br /><br /><b><i>Best Staging for a Burger</i></b>: At the Bloor Street Diner, diners enjoyed their meal amid a backdrop of “pink neon, high-gloss black lacquered trim and stainless steel table tops.” The burger itself had a quality most people would appreciate—it wasn’t “sinewy.”<br /><br /><b><i>Best Patty</i></b>: The Hayloft at 37 Front St. E. offered a burger that was lean, juicy, flavourful, and extremely fresh. Unfortunately, White felt it was ruined by lousy condiments, mediocre bun, and fries that had been sitting around for a while. The server accidentally brought White a cheeseburger, which was topped with “a tasteless, carrot-coloured film to peel off as one peels dried rubber cement off the back of one’s hand.”<br /><br /><b><i>Best Burger in a Supporting Role</i></b>: Both Mr. Greenjeans (Eaton Centre and 120 Adelaide St. E.) and Partners (836 Danforth Ave. and 765 Mount Pleasant Rd.) served their burgers in large wicker baskets filled with Buffalo chips and on what White considered the city’s best burger bun, a light egg roll prepared by Central Bakery.<br /><br /><b><i>Toronto’s Darkest Burger</i></b>: The experience of eating at Toby’s Good Eats at 91 Bloor St. W. on even a sunny day was “like sitting in a cellar during a hydro black-out.” When the waitress told him to enjoy his lunch, White replied “we would if we could see it.”http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/05/off-grid-retro-to-wimpy-awards.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-4613756314585207295Tue, 12 May 2015 17:08:00 +00002015-05-12T13:08:06.509-04:00radio waves and walking tours<b><i>Item</i></b>: I recently appeared on <a href="http://radioregent.com/">Radio Regent</a>'s <b><i>Dums Dums</i></b> show, along with Adrienne Coffey from the Archives of Ontario, to discuss how to use archives. <a href="https://archive.org/details/DumDumsS01E25Archives">Listen to the podcast here</a>.<br /><br /><b><i>Item</i></b>: Along with fellow <b><i>Historicist</i></b> writer David Wencer and Heritage Toronto's Plaques and Markers Program Coordinator Michelle Ridout, I'll be leading a walk during Doors Open weekend (May 23-24). The subject: "Sport Stadiums and Lakeside Leisure: Playing Along the Waterfront"<br /><br />Three walks will be conducted each day, at 10:30 a.m., 11:00 a.m., and 2:00 p.m. I'm leading the 11:00 a.m. walks each day; Michelle will lead the other two Saturday walks, while David will guide the other two Sunday walks.<br /><br />Want to come? <a href="http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=436adc273e8cc410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD&amp;key=F75DF22D68318F6885257DE900680F1F">Sign up on the Doors Open site</a> for the slot that best suits your plans for that weekend! The meeting spot is Little Norway Park, located at the southwest corner of Bathurst and Queens Quay.http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/05/radio-waves-and-walking-tours.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-1152557689801811098Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:58:00 +00002015-04-21T12:46:02.269-04:00apartmenthistoryhousinglangstaff jail farmtorontotoronto is fast becoming an apartment-house city<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qpevVivIVRM/VTZWQLbZM6I/AAAAAAAABcA/jFhGk52ZDws/s1600/news%2B12-04-27%2Btoronto%2Bbecoming%2Bapartment%2Bcity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qpevVivIVRM/VTZWQLbZM6I/AAAAAAAABcA/jFhGk52ZDws/s1600/news%2B12-04-27%2Btoronto%2Bbecoming%2Bapartment%2Bcity.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The <b>News</b>, April 27, 1912.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Also worthy of note, which I didn't edit out of this clipping: a silly story of the day (the man with the 39-letter last name); a typical example of how ads often looked like news items ("In Camp and Barracks"); and an announcement regarding appointments for what was eventually known as the <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2010/07/25/old_torontos_farm_for_minor_offenders.html">Langstaff Jail Farm</a>, where minor offenders (and some ill/poor seniors) were shipped to tend land until 1958.http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/04/toronto-is-fast-becoming-apartment.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-5743770290355947987Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:36:00 +00002015-04-15T15:40:24.353-04:001860sabraham lincolnandrew johnsonhistorynewspapersthe globewilliam h. sewardcovering the assassination of abraham lincoln, toronto-style<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-crLrpVsqW60/VS5YTZ6z1aI/AAAAAAAABbE/96NKBDqmNyE/s1600/lincoln.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-crLrpVsqW60/VS5YTZ6z1aI/AAAAAAAABbE/96NKBDqmNyE/s1600/lincoln.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Abraham Lincoln, 1863</i></td></tr></tbody></table>April 15, 1865: the front page of the <b><i>Globe</i></b> featured its usual assortment of classifieds and diplomatic dispatches from Great Britain and elsewhere. It also contained the latest news from Hamilton, publication notices for two books, and an article offering advice from a former Torontonian on moving to California. Nothing particularly earth-shattering.<br /><br />Not so the headline halfway down the first column of page 2:<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0foUEqIcM9I/VS5fGmgWUoI/AAAAAAAABbc/UkdgxY5xh6Y/s1600/globe%2B1865-04-15%2Blincoln.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0foUEqIcM9I/VS5fGmgWUoI/AAAAAAAABbc/UkdgxY5xh6Y/s1600/globe%2B1865-04-15%2Blincoln.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Globe</b>, April 15, 1865.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>The Globe then outlined what it knew about the events at Ford's Theatre the previous evening, and gave this description of Lincoln's condition:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The President was in a state of synops, totally insensible and breathing slowly. The blood oozed from the wound at the back of his head. The surgeons used every possible effort of medical skill, but all hope was gone. The parting of his family with the dying President is too sad for description.</blockquote>In a separate incident, an attempt was made on the life of Secretary of State <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Seward">William H. Seward</a>, which led to fears for his life.<br /><br />After stories about a warm greeting given to politicians George Etienne Cartier and Alexander Tilloch Galt in Halifax, and a flood in Montreal, the paper published an editorial about Lincoln and Seward. An excerpt:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">In the absence of information as to the author of these bloody deeds, the class to which they belonged and the motives which influenced them, we are left entirely to conjecture. But it is not difficult to arrive at a probable conclusion on these points. Mr. Lincoln was remarkable for his kindliness, generosity, and uprightness. He was one of the last men we should have expected to see struck down by the hand of a private enemy. No harsh exercise of authority against an individual was at all likely to have led to his assassination. To an enemy of his public career, to one who was prompted by a desire to kill the President rather than the man, we must loo for the author of the bloody deed. The act was thoroughly pre-arranged; it was not that of a madman. The preparations for escape prove that fact...That a fanatical Southerner was the author of this deed will be the conclusion of almost everybody, and the object not difficult to discover. Mr. Lincoln is unquestionably the ablest statesman whom Providence has vouchsafed to the American people in the midst of their great struggle. His sagacity, his prudence, his firmness, and above all, his honesty, which compelled popular support and sympathy, made him a tower of strength amidst the tossing waves of the revolution.</blockquote><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P4jfyZZYX3Q/VS5Yjd1cCjI/AAAAAAAABbM/W_HvwfFhkUg/s1600/seward.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P4jfyZZYX3Q/VS5Yjd1cCjI/AAAAAAAABbM/W_HvwfFhkUg/s1600/seward.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>William H. Seward</i></td></tr></tbody></table>The paper had reservations about Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The anxiety for his safety was unquestionably sharpened by the fact that the Vice-President, Mr. Johnson, is far from being, in all respects, worthy to fill Mr. Lincoln's place. His fiasco at the inauguration ceremonies is still fresh in the memories of our readers.* Mr. Johnson was chosen by the Republican Convention at Baltimore last year, simply as a compliment to the loyal people of the Southern States. He was unquestionably the ablest representative of a slave State who adhered to the Northern cause with entire devotion, and in their eagerness to show friendliness to loyal Southerners, the Republicans forgot that other qualities were wanting in the man of their choice besides fidelity and talent...Mr. Johnson is a self-made man, and we need hardly say that any one who rises from the workman's bench to the place of United States senator must possess great qualities both of head and heart. It is alleged that the conclusion which might have been drawn from his recent escapafe in the Senate Chamber as to his habits was erroneous. He is said to be a very honest, straightforward man, with much of the roughness of the Westerner which marked Jackson and Lincoln, and also a large share of their shrewdness and sagacity. Mr. Johnson is called to a great position at an important crisis, and we hope he may prove worthy of it. In one important respect he is all that could be desired. Casting aside early prejudices, he is a friend of emancipation and warmly sympathizes with the coloured race.</blockquote>Then, the final summaries:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">As a friend of peace on this continent we regret the loss of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, if it be decreed that both shall die. Mr. Lincoln was too wise to have been a party to a war with European powers and Mr. Seward, strong as was his language at times, is believed to have been throughout a true friend of England and of peace...The whole world will be shocked by these frightful deeds, and the cause in support of which they were undertaken will gain only a temporary benefit from them.</blockquote><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GqVwtMH9bK8/VS5f4tAaqwI/AAAAAAAABbk/pSE9hNnV6ro/s1600/globe-1865-04-17-lincoln.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GqVwtMH9bK8/VS5f4tAaqwI/AAAAAAAABbk/pSE9hNnV6ro/s1600/globe-1865-04-17-lincoln.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Front page story, <b>Globe</b>, April 17, 1865.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Following the usual Sunday publishing break, the <b>Globe</b> returned on April 17 with the death of Lincoln as its front page story. Reaction from across America was provided to readers.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NVbY7hq5YL0/VS5geWMvEHI/AAAAAAAABbs/fhzTltw11-Y/s1600/globe%2B1865-04-17%2Blincoln%2Bpage%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NVbY7hq5YL0/VS5geWMvEHI/AAAAAAAABbs/fhzTltw11-Y/s1600/globe%2B1865-04-17%2Blincoln%2Bpage%2B2.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Excerpt from page 2,<b> Globe</b>, April 17, 1865.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Page 2 provided further updates, including the news that Seward would recover. He continued on as Secretary of State in the Johnson administration. Among his later accomplishments: the treaty bearing his name which made Alaska an American possession in 1867.<br /><br />* Johnson was reputedly hung over on inauguration day. His cure was more whiskey. He gave a rambling, nearly incoherent speech in the Senate Chamber as the opening act for Lincoln's second inaugural address.http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/04/covering-assassination-of-abraham.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-2041194555988057298Mon, 13 Apr 2015 12:24:00 +00002015-04-13T11:32:25.633-04:001970sbaseballdoug aulthistoryopening daypaul beestontorontotoronto blue jaysoff the grid: retro t.o. take me out to the brrrrrr game<div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5LDBDaQDtM0/VSu0UiUWPrI/AAAAAAAABaY/zmYeeHvwJso/s1600/gm%2B77-04-07%2Beditorial.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5LDBDaQDtM0/VSu0UiUWPrI/AAAAAAAABaY/zmYeeHvwJso/s1600/gm%2B77-04-07%2Beditorial.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Globe and Mail</b>, April 7, 1977.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><i style="line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This installment of my "Retro T.O." column for The Grid was originally published on April 3, 2012.&nbsp;</span></i></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;">Fur coats, parkas, and snowmobile suits—not the garb traditionally associated with an afternoon at the ol’ ball game. Yet for baseball fans at the Blue Jays’ franchise debut on April 7, 1977, heavy winter gear was necessary to endure snow and bone-chilling wind. Though many of the 44,649 attendees left Exhibition Stadium after the first inning to escape the inclement weather and to start bragging that they were there, those who stayed (“assuming they survive the pneumonia that is bound to set in,” noted the <b><i>Globe and Mail</i></b>’s Allen Abel) were warmed by the team’s performance on the field.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;">The team received over 200,000 requests for opening-day tickets. Some devoted fans of the old minor-league <a href="http://torontoist.com/2015/04/historicist-opening-day-at-maple-leaf-stadium/">Maple Leafs</a> franchise that <a href="http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.ca/2012/11/past-pieces-of-toronto-maple-leaf.html">left town after the 1967 season</a> felt they deserved a place at the front of the line. According to George Holm, director of ticket operations, their letters were filled with declarations that the letter writers had attended all of the Leafs’ home openers and should be able to do the same with the Jays.</span><br /><span style="font-family: TiemposTextRegular;"><span style="line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;"><br /></span></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6nEA2tkJPGs/VSu0fkmdIiI/AAAAAAAABag/qrqEjCgnd70/s1600/ts%2B77-04-05%2Bsouvenirs%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6nEA2tkJPGs/VSu0fkmdIiI/AAAAAAAABag/qrqEjCgnd70/s1600/ts%2B77-04-05%2Bsouvenirs%2B2.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, April 5, 1977</i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;">Amid the huddled masses, fans bore Blue Jays souvenirs and memorabilia. The team gave Toronto-based Irwin Toys an exclusive license to market caps, glasses, gloves, and other items. Some of Irwin’s suggestions, like hip flasks and women’s panties, were vetoed by team vice-president Paul Beeston. “I mean, we’ve got a family thing here and the flask seemed a little inappropriate,” Beeston told the Star.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;">Yet some fans would have loved a Blue Jays flask for the first game. Besides allowing one to warm up with a nip of scotch, sneaking in a flask would have been the only way to enjoy any alcohol thanks to a beer ban at Exhibition Stadium enforced by the Ontario government. Despite fan pleading, provincial officials refused to lift the ban due to fear of the havoc drunk spectators might cause and the horror of exposing underage fans to beer. During the game, fans chanted “we want beer” while a plane flying overhead bore a message to Premier William Davis: “Good Luck Jays! Now Give Us Beer, Bill.” The taps weren’t turned on for another five years.</span><br /><span style="font-family: TiemposTextRegular;"><span style="line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;"><br /></span></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-25ZP1fW6huo/VSu0_bhMUFI/AAAAAAAABao/XlyNGftSsYM/s1600/ts%2B77-04-07%2Bfront%2Bpage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-25ZP1fW6huo/VSu0_bhMUFI/AAAAAAAABao/XlyNGftSsYM/s1600/ts%2B77-04-07%2Bfront%2Bpage.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, April 7, 1977.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;">As beer-denied fans huddled while sitting atop the aluminum seats that, as sportswriter Stephen Brunt later noted, “perfectly transferred cold right up the spines of spectators,” the grounds crew used a Zamboni-like device to clear the field of snow. The game was only slightly delayed and, shortly after 1:30 p.m., fans rose as the 48th Highlanders played “The Star Spangled Banner” and a red-parka-clad Anne Murray sang “O Canada.” The pop star’s performance gave third baseman Dave McKay, the only Canadian Blue Jay, goosebumps. “I hadn’t expected to react like that,” McKay told the <b><i>Star</i></b>. “It was an emotional moment for me.”</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;">The hero of the Jays’ 9-5 victory over the Chicago White Sox was first baseman Doug Ault. After Toronto’s first two batters struck out in the first inning, Ault hit a home run. As the <b><i>Star</i></b>’s Jim Proudfoot observed, “forty thousand pairs of hands were either slapped together loudly or waved in the air…and several thousand feminine hearts palpitated as the handsome Texan acknowledged all the applause while jogging in with the Jays’ very first score.” Ault hit another homer in his second at bat and drove in four runs total during the game. He acknowledged the support of the freezing fans, noting that they “really got me pumped up.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: TiemposTextRegular;"><span style="line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;"><br /></span></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j384K1EpyqA/VSu1Le2YjbI/AAAAAAAABaw/avQ9GOntevc/s1600/gm%2B77-04-08%2Bfront%2Bpage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j384K1EpyqA/VSu1Le2YjbI/AAAAAAAABaw/avQ9GOntevc/s1600/gm%2B77-04-08%2Bfront%2Bpage.jpg" height="640" width="544" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Globe and Mail</b>, April 8, 1977. Click on image for larger version.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;">The standing ovations Ault received would be among the few that season, as the optimism of opening day gave way to realism—an expansion team that would win 54 of 161 games.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 1.375px;"><i>Additional material from <b>Diamond Dreams</b> by Stephen Brunt (Toronto: Penguin, 1996), the April 8, 1977 edition of the <b>Globe and Mail</b>, and the April 5, 1977 and April 9, 1977 editions of the <b>Toronto Star</b>.</i></span></div>http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/04/off-grid-retro-to-take-me-out-to.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-481375504542271882Tue, 31 Mar 2015 12:51:00 +00002015-03-31T12:42:46.022-04:001960scomic bookshistorystar weeklywonder womanthe new wonder woman is here!<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0tOIhDeJWjY/VRqODeJl88I/AAAAAAAABZY/v2SA4ryd9hk/s1600/sw%2B68-09-15%2Bnew%2Bwonder%2Bwoman%2Bsmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0tOIhDeJWjY/VRqODeJl88I/AAAAAAAABZY/v2SA4ryd9hk/s1600/sw%2B68-09-15%2Bnew%2Bwonder%2Bwoman%2Bsmall.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Star Weekly</b>, September 15, 1968.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />By 1968, Wonder Woman was long overdue for a major revamp. Over the decades since her introduction in &nbsp;1941, the edginess that marked her early years (especially <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/10/27/359078315/the-man-behind-wonder-woman-was-inspired-by-both-suffragists-and-centerfolds">the kinkiness slipped in by creator William Moulton Marston</a>) had been watered down. Her rogues gallery was nothing to write home about, from boring baddies like Angle Man to the bizarre, not-at-all-racist <a href="http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/369/">Egg Fu</a>. An attempt to revive the character's 1940s look had faltered. Her dowdy alter-ego, military secretary Diana Prince, just wouldn't do in a Vietnam world.<br /><br />Cue makeover. Writer Denny O'Neil and artist Mike Sekowsky shook up Wonder Woman's world with <a href="https://christopherlbennett.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/wonder-woman-goes-mod-the-diana-prince-era-spoiler-review/">a series of changes</a> that transformed her from a star-spangled heroine into an Emma Peel-inspired protagonist:<br /><br /><ul><li>Dumped the costume in favour of mod clothing, which evolved into various white-coloured outfits by the early 1970s</li><li>Killed off useless love interest Steve Trevor, replacing him with a blind Asian mentor named I Ching</li><li>Ditched the superpowers, forcing Diana to rely on her athleticism and wits</li><li>Sent the Amazons into another dimension</li><li>Dropped her from the Justice League of America, where she was replaced by Black Canary</li></ul><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UtMz4AzLX5Y/VRqOdlaxiuI/AAAAAAAABZg/vru_jpPYllc/s1600/sw%2B68-09-15%2Bnew%2Bwonder%2Bwoman%2Btext.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UtMz4AzLX5Y/VRqOdlaxiuI/AAAAAAAABZg/vru_jpPYllc/s1600/sw%2B68-09-15%2Bnew%2Bwonder%2Bwoman%2Btext.jpg" /></a></div><br />The launch of the makeover in late summer 1968 prompted <b><i>Star Weekly</i></b> beauty columnist Keitha McLean to discuss the changes to the iconic superheroine.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xR1qT6ZFeAE/VRqNZOvLfoI/AAAAAAAABZQ/FUbc49L-pAs/s1600/wonder_woman_178.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xR1qT6ZFeAE/VRqNZOvLfoI/AAAAAAAABZQ/FUbc49L-pAs/s1600/wonder_woman_178.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Cover of <b>Wonder Woman</b> #178, October 1968. Art by Mike Sekowsky and Dick Giordano.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>This phase of Wonder Woman's career lasted for the next four years. Towards the end of this era, further experiments were tried, from blending fantasy author <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Leiber">Fritz Leiber's</a> Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser characters <a href="http://www.comics.org/issue/25423/">into a battle with a weirdly-attired Catwoman</a>, to a special "<a href="http://www.comics.org/issue/25615/">Women's Lib</a>" issue written by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_R._Delany">Samuel R. Delaney</a>. Ultimately, <a href="http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2013/02/07/abandoned-love-how-do-we-get-wonder-woman-back-from-being-a-mod/">the reset button was hit</a>, and by 1973 the status quo was restored.http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-new-wonder-woman-is-here.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-5967035618916771012Mon, 30 Mar 2015 14:57:00 +00002015-03-30T11:35:34.651-04:001950scomic stripsmarmadukenewspaperspeanutsthe telegramcomic strip dogs department<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w5khKvjXw74/VRlHvrWaH8I/AAAAAAAABY8/s-tBGE1maE0/s1600/tely%2B54-11-15%2Bpeanuts%2Bmarmaduke%2Bad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w5khKvjXw74/VRlHvrWaH8I/AAAAAAAABY8/s-tBGE1maE0/s1600/tely%2B54-11-15%2Bpeanuts%2Bmarmaduke%2Bad.jpg" height="640" width="473" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The <b>Telegram</b>, November 15, 1954. Click on image for larger version.&nbsp;</i></td></tr></tbody></table>November 15, 1954: the day Torontonians began enjoying two long-running comic strips, courtesy of the <b><i>Telegram.</i></b> <b><i>Peanuts</i></b>&nbsp;(<a href="http://torontoist.com/2011/05/good_grief_charlie_brown/">whose local debut I wrote about for <b><i>Torontoist</i></b></a>) had been gaining popularity across North America since its debut four years earlier, while <b><i>Marmaduke</i></b> began causing mischief that year. Both strips migrated to the Toronto Star when the Tely folded in 1971.<br /><br /><b><i>Peanuts</i></b> is regarded as a comic strip classic; <b><i>Marmaduke</i></b> is admired for its longevity (creator Brad Anderson is still alive at age 90). The Great Dane's monotony has led papers to try and drop the strip--an act they don't always succeed in carrying out. When <a href="http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2008/02/03/web_sites_mocking_comic_strips_gain_following.html">the <b><i>Star</i></b> attempted to dump it in 1999</a>, readers revolted.<br /><br />When people like, as the <b><i>Star</i></b> put it, the same two jokes told over and over again ("Marmaduke is a dog with some human qualities, and Marmaduke is gargantuan"), it's comfort food they will fight tenaciously to hold on to. Reader protests to keep certain strips alive has led to plenty of zombie panels on the printed page of series whose expiration date was decades ago, and fueled a cottage industry of websites mocking those legacy strips.<br /><br /><i>Additional material from the February 3, 2008 edition of the <b>Toronto Star</b>.&nbsp;</i>http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/03/comic-strip-dogs-department.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-5318144322833756932Fri, 27 Mar 2015 15:29:00 +00002015-03-27T11:42:17.824-04:001940shistorymeatless daysnewspapersthe telegramtorontono more meatless days!August 14, 1947 was a busy day on the global history front. British rule in India ended, as the subcontinent anxiously prepared to split into the new nations of India and Pakistan. In Germany, 22 former attendants at the Buchenwald concentration camp were sentenced to hang ("22 NAZIS TO DIE FOR ATROCITIES" screamed the <b><i>Star</i></b>'s main headline). In Tel Aviv, violence between Arabs and Jews escalated, leading to fears, according to the Globe and Mail, of "the worst racial conflict in the Holy Land since 1939."<br /><br />At home, Torontonians endured a week-long heat wave which was blamed for causing two deaths that day: a 60-year-old man who suffered heat prostration and was pronounced dead on arrival at St. Mike's Hospital, and another man who died at his home on Lauder Avenue.&nbsp;Temperatures hovered between 90 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit around the province, and were accompanied by high humidity. The heat caused factories to close early. In Ottawa, government offices closed at noon. Low water pressure affected cities like Hamilton, Kitchener, and Peterborough. Dairy farmers near St. Thomas feared that dry pastures was responsible a 15 percent drop in milk production.<br /><br />Amidst the gloom and doom, the front page of that afternoon's <b><i>Telegram</i></b> offered a ray of hope...to non-vegetarians, at least.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5hFxJk_pg7s/VRVFw9LivdI/AAAAAAAABYY/SqkC9rE2N_w/s1600/tely%2B47-08-14%2Bno%2Bmore%2Bmeatless%2Bdays%2Bheadline.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5hFxJk_pg7s/VRVFw9LivdI/AAAAAAAABYY/SqkC9rE2N_w/s1600/tely%2B47-08-14%2Bno%2Bmore%2Bmeatless%2Bdays%2Bheadline.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DtBd_OvCIF0/VRVF22smwtI/AAAAAAAABYg/e83K5lPFvh0/s1600/tely%2B47-08-14%2Bno%2Bmore%2Bmeatless%2Bdays%2Bstory.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DtBd_OvCIF0/VRVF22smwtI/AAAAAAAABYg/e83K5lPFvh0/s1600/tely%2B47-08-14%2Bno%2Bmore%2Bmeatless%2Bdays%2Bstory.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The next morning's <i style="font-weight: bold;">Globe and Mail </i>contained further&nbsp;details. While Canada had fallen behind on its commitments to supply Great Britain with millions of pounds of meat, the federal government felt the situation had improved enough that it was wise to let the Canadian public go hog wild again. It also appears the restrictions were primarily on red meat; eggs, fish, and poultry appear to have been exempt, disappointing those with cravings for thick steaks.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Anyone who expected immediate gratification was disappointed.</div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="clear: both;">There will be little meat served in restaurants today because most eating places prepare their menus ahead of time, Norman Kirby, a director of the Canadian Restaurant association said last night. He said that the serving of meat courses will become general next Tuesday <i>[August 19, 1947]</i>.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="clear: both;">Consumption of fowl is expected to take a drop of 10 to 15 percent, now that restaurants are out of the meatless category. According to several restaurant owners, the public has become accustomed to eating chicken and other fowl, and the drop in consumption may not be higher than 10 per cent.</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I wonder if diners who grew used to eating chicken during the war may have helped play a role in the success of a Toronto restaurant which launched in the early 1950s--Swiss Chalet.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>With such a great headline like "NO MORE MEATLESS DAYS," you'd expect the lone front page picture on the <i><b>Telegram</b></i> to show a snappily-dressed diner tearing into a massive steak, a look of ecstasy covering their face.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nope.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>OK, perhaps pictures of Ontario residents wilting in the heat?&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Nope, that was the next day's <b><i>Globe and Mail</i></b>. &nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Pictures of Muhammed Ali Jinnah and Jawaharal Nehru to mark the birth of two new nations?<br /><br />Nope, that was the next day's <b><i>Star</i></b>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nZr1_siotWI/VRVF9FkE_4I/AAAAAAAABYo/l0PK7oJvtlU/s1600/tely%2B47-08-14%2Bno%2Bmore%2Bmeatless%2Bdays%2Bdog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nZr1_siotWI/VRVF9FkE_4I/AAAAAAAABYo/l0PK7oJvtlU/s1600/tely%2B47-08-14%2Bno%2Bmore%2Bmeatless%2Bdays%2Bdog.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The <b>Telegram</b>, August 14, 1947</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It's a "dog saves drowning man" story. Human interest triumphs! Perhaps Gale celebrated his survival with a nice, juicy, ration-free steak dinner.&nbsp;</div>http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/03/no-more-meatless-days.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-4585498559204164881Thu, 26 Mar 2015 14:20:00 +00002015-03-26T10:20:04.644-04:001950shistorymillionaire samnewsboysnewspapersthe telegramtorontomeet a newsboy department: "millionaire sam"<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-47bGM91Gvac/VRQUOW9oD8I/AAAAAAAABYE/PFpKLkZ_vuo/s1600/tely-52-12-03-millionaire-sam-retires.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-47bGM91Gvac/VRQUOW9oD8I/AAAAAAAABYE/PFpKLkZ_vuo/s1600/tely-52-12-03-millionaire-sam-retires.jpg" height="338" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The <b>Telegram</b>, December 3, 1952. Click on image for larger version.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>If you do the math, "Millionaire Sam" was only four years younger than the <b><i>Tely</i></b> itself. I wonder if he found the night watchman job he desired for his final years (unless it's a joke). Unless they opened convenience stores or expanded their hawking into a storefront newsstand, it's unlikely any of the younger men entering the newsboy field in 1952 enjoyed careers as long as Mr. Samuels.http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/03/meet-newsboy-department-millionaire-sam.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-8409123600291804446Wed, 25 Mar 2015 14:34:00 +00002015-03-25T10:42:19.405-04:00historymuseumsroyal ontario museumparalytically modest museums departmentIt's <a href="http://museumweek2015.org/en/">Museum Week</a> on Twitter this week, which prompted me to sift through my "Future Story Ideas" and "Misc" folders to see if anything relevant lurked about, waiting for its moment in the sun.<br /><br />I found this: an article published in the <b><i>Globe</i></b> in 1932 declaring that, based on a report conducted for the Carnegie Corporation, Canadian museums were boring. Read deeper and you'll find greater complexities. Some institutions were getting off the ground; others suffered from a lack of endowments. Old models such as rooms tucked away in the middle of a university, lingered on. Only a few museums were "well worthy of the towns in which they are situated," such as the Royal Ontario Museum, which was <a href="http://torontoist.com/2014/03/happy-centennial-royal-ontario-museum/">undergoing an expansion along Queen's Park</a> when this article was published.<br /><br />Read the full article below to discover the extent of "paralytic modesty" in Canada's museums of the early 1930s.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SrwT9kwnWeM/VRKu9FhVnTI/AAAAAAAABXo/2ZhYpmA0Lk8/s1600/globe-32-11-24-few-canadian-museums-are-worth-the-trouble_Page_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SrwT9kwnWeM/VRKu9FhVnTI/AAAAAAAABXo/2ZhYpmA0Lk8/s1600/globe-32-11-24-few-canadian-museums-are-worth-the-trouble_Page_1.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u8eXKQGAZW0/VRKvCdUfxoI/AAAAAAAABXw/KQAxDOmDpig/s1600/globe-32-11-24-few-canadian-museums-are-worth-the-trouble_Page_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u8eXKQGAZW0/VRKvCdUfxoI/AAAAAAAABXw/KQAxDOmDpig/s1600/globe-32-11-24-few-canadian-museums-are-worth-the-trouble_Page_2.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The <b>Globe</b>, November 24, 1932</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/03/paralytically-modest-museums-department.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-8726598491011784622Mon, 09 Mar 2015 06:13:00 +00002015-03-09T02:13:08.322-04:001920selgin and winter garden theatresharry gaireyhistoryshea's hippodromethe wild partytorontovaudevillewilliam peyton hubbardchatting before the wild party<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ANeWK7JD47s/VP05o__gU6I/AAAAAAAABWk/o_Hey_Pjgws/s1600/wildpartycover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ANeWK7JD47s/VP05o__gU6I/AAAAAAAABWk/o_Hey_Pjgws/s1600/wildpartycover.jpg" /></a></div><i><br /></i><i><br /></i><i>During the recent run of <a href="http://actingupstage.com/" target="_blank">Acting Up</a>/<a href="http://www.obsidiantheatre.com/" target="_blank">Obsidian</a>'s production of <b>The Wild Party</b>, I was invited to give a pre-show chat prior to three performances. I split the talk into two sections: the black community in Toronto during the 1920s, and a brief look at vaudeville in the city during that decade.</i><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fEb985t3QrI/VP0yjvTwYvI/AAAAAAAABVw/5kL2Rf1vhiA/s1600/20131019williams.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fEb985t3QrI/VP0yjvTwYvI/AAAAAAAABVw/5kL2Rf1vhiA/s1600/20131019williams.jpg" height="282" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Wedding of J.M. Williams and Rachel Stephenson, July 28, 1926. City of Toronto Archives, <b>Globe and Mail</b> fonds, Fonds 1266, Item 8380. Click on image for larger version.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Among the weddings detailed on the social and women’s pages of Toronto’s major newspapers on July 29, 1926, regular readers might have noticed something unusual about one of them. As the <b><i>Toronto Star</i></b>’s headline put it, “Toronto Jamaica Folk Attend Smart Wedding.” The <b><i>Star</i></b>, along with the <b><i>Globe</i></b> and the <b><i>Telegram</i></b>, covered the union of merchant Joshua Michael Williams and Rachel Adina Stephenson. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the coverage is that, apart from references to the couple’s West Indian origins, it could have passed for any other society wedding. For example, Ms Stephenson was “charmingly gowned in white satin, with the cap of her embroidered net veil banded with orange blossoms, carried a shower bouquet of Ophelia roses and baby’s breath. Miss Gladys Bramwell, the maid of honour, and the five bridesmaids wore gowns of pink georgette, with drooping pink hats and carried bouquets of delicate pink rambler roses.” Also provided were what the guests and child ringbearers wore, the music played as the couple walked down the aisle, and their honeymoon destination (Niagara Falls). Had it not been for the picture printed of the marital party, you’d almost be unaware that the participants were black.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Such a notice might have been unusual given how small Toronto’s black community was during the era of <b><i>The Wild Party</i></b>. Officially, there were 1,236 blacks according to the 1921 census, and 1,344 by 1931. Due to the nature of the questions asked about racial and ancestral origin, some historians figure the actual total may have around 2,500. In any case, the black community was a small fraction of Toronto’s overall population – around a quarter of one percent. The community experienced little growth until the 1960s for various reasons—primarily restrictions on immigration. These especially affected the flow of migrants from the Caribbean, which was kind of ironic during the 1920s given that there were periodic calls for Canada to federate with the British colonies of the Caribbean. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">In his book <b><i>Black Politics in Toronto Since World War I</i></b>, Keith Henry divided Toronto’s post-First World War black community into four groups. Two with the least influence were Americans (migrants, usually seasonal, from the United States, who worked in music, sports, or the railways) and Nova Scotians: (basically treated as the “hicks from the sticks” by everyone else. Regarded as apolitical).<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Eh66-ie0ndE/VP01O98UCyI/AAAAAAAABWE/9sb6_0w_JjI/s1600/Portrait640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Eh66-ie0ndE/VP01O98UCyI/AAAAAAAABWE/9sb6_0w_JjI/s1600/Portrait640.jpg" height="640" width="465" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Portrait of William Peyton Hubbard (1913) by W.A. Sherwood (1859-1919). City of Toronto Art Collection, Cultural Services.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">The most established group was the “Old Line”: families who had resided in the Toronto area or Ontario since the days of Upper Canada, and who made up most of the local black community prior to the First World War. Despite the periodic displays of racism to them, they didn’t experience as much as blacks in other parts of the province. They tended to favour the ideas of hard work, initiative, and self-support promoted by thinkers like Booker T. Washington. Several achieved prominent roles in Toronto, most notably the Hubbard family. <a href="http://torontoist.com/2009/02/historicist_public_history_and_william_peyton_hubbard/" target="_blank">William Peyton Hubbard</a> served as a city councillor for two decades beginning in 1894, becoming the first black elected to public office in a Canadian city. On several occasions, he served as acting mayor. Though he was retired by the 1920s, Hubbard was regarded by the press as the “grand old man” of Toronto politics. His son, Frederick, served as chairman of the TTC during 1929 and 1930.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">As Henry puts it, by the end of the First World War, the Old Line enjoyed “a solid institutional life and a degree of economic comfort and civic integration undreamt of by the West Indian-dominated community which emerged during the next generation.” Yet despite the success of families like the Hubbards, and the fact that, unlike other places in Ontario like Windsor, blacks could join community organizations like the Boy Scouts and the YMCA, for many there was only so far they could go. Buying homes in white neighbourhoods wasn’t always an easy task. One never saw a black work as a department store clerk. Some restaurants and entertainment venues were less than accommodating. Racism may not have been as blatant as the southern US, but Toronto wasn’t the oasis of enlightenment either. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The last of Henry’s groups, Caribbean immigrants, were seen by the Old Line as too aggressive and race conscious. They in turn felt the Old Line were too conservative in their assimilationist attitudes. Yet the early Caribbean community in Toronto was, thanks to immigration laws, primarily female domestic workers. Those who did come organized into community groups, starting with the Coloured Literary Association of Toronto in 1919, which quickly became the local branch of Marcus Garvey’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Negro_Improvement_Association_and_African_Communities_League" target="_blank">Universal Negro Improvement Association</a>. Some potential leaders of the West Indian community, along with other blacks, would migrate to New York City during the 1920s, as it offered far more social, cultural, economic and political opportunities. It’s almost easy to imagine that the city during the era of the Harlem Renaissance was far more attractive than fussy, dull, uptight Toronto. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Within all of these communities, there seems to have been a streak of rationalizing why they were largely inactive or ineffective in combating discrimination against them. There were many paths to division, from criticizing levels of aggressiveness, to falling back on the notion that, however things were in Toronto, they were much worse elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZHfz3kjs3oA/VP00oR-WFOI/AAAAAAAABV8/CpDdwTUVPZo/s1600/gaireygroupsmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZHfz3kjs3oA/VP00oR-WFOI/AAAAAAAABV8/CpDdwTUVPZo/s1600/gaireygroupsmall.jpg" height="276" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Attorney General’s reception for the Ontario Black History Society, February 16, 1981. Harry Gairey (seated), Beverly Salmon (second from left), Attorney General Roy McMurtry (middle) and other attendees. Daniel G. Hill fonds, reference Code: F 2130-9-1-1, Archives of Ontario, I0027971. Click on image for larger version.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">Harry Gairey, a longtime railway employee whose community activism is honoured with an ice rink in Alexandra Park, moved to Toronto from Jamaica in 1917. In his memoir, he assessed how the lack of leadership manifested itself.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">Maybe there were black leaders, but not that I know of. Because at that period, the Blacks were almost just emerging. At that period we, the Blacks, were nothing you know, and you just almost gave up and said “What’s the use?” It’s not like now; they were ashamed to identify, they weren’t proud of themselves.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">You couldn’t go to Eaton’s and ask for a job, or to the Bell Telephone. It was unheard of to go to a restaurant or a public dance. You wouldn’t go there because you knew you weren’t welcome. That’s a known fact, you see.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Among the jobs that were available was barbering. Gairey recalled the barber shop owned by Bill Smith at Queen and St. Patrick, whose clients included businessmen, city councillors, and longtime mayor <a href="http://torontoist.com/2014/06/meet-a-toronto-mayor-tommy-church/" target="_blank">TommyChurch</a>. You can trace a hint of distaste in Gairey’s voice when he described a set of black workers Smith didn’t cater to. “I don’t think he would like to get the railroad porters and all them because they would come in and sit down and take up space and all that sort of thing.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Much of the black social life of 1920s Toronto appears to have revolved around its churches, many of which were located in the low-income Ward neighbourhood around present-day Nathan Phillips Square and the hospitals around University Avenue. As Gairey observed, “The boys would go there because the girls were there, not from any spiritual standpoint”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">On stage, if blacks got into theatre, it’s likely the only black performers they might have seen would have either musical performers or blackface comedians like you’ll see with Burrs tonight. It may be worth noting that ministrel shows were still seen as an OK thing in Toronto into the 1950s (and toured Nova Scotia into the mid-1960s) and that it wasn’t until 1932 that a touring group of black actors, assembled by Louisiana-based Richard Huey, toured Canada.<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><o:p></o:p><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">This provides a segue way into the second half of my talk, about vaudeville in Toronto. With its location between New York and Chicago, Toronto was one of the prime stops on the vaudeville circuit. By the late 1920s, around 50 theatres across the city offered vaudeville acts, usually mixed with film screenings. Among the first was Shea’s, opened at 91 Yonge Street in 1899. Brothers Jerry and Michael Shea built up an empire on both sides of the border – among their later theatres which still survive is the <a href="http://www.sheas.org/" target="_blank">Shea’s Performing Arts Center</a> in downtown Buffalo. Following a fire which destroyed their Yonge Street theatre, the Sheas built a new venue at the southeast corner of Victoria and Richmond. Opened in 1910, Shea’s Victoria held 2,000 patrons who came to see bills featuring eight acts. As newspaper writer Hector Charlesworth once observed, pure vaudeville like that presented at the Victoria “consisted of singers and dancers, slight-of-hand and juggling acts, trained animal acts (anything from the elephant to flea), slapstick cross-town comedians, trick bicycle riders, and above all comic monologuists, the best of whom were usually headliners.” The Victoria was later purchased by Famous Players, who also used it for offices and storage until it was demolished in 1956. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H0OPMg4BkxY/VP01wVZfa_I/AAAAAAAABWM/sYNTikoLfDo/s1600/sheashippodrome.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H0OPMg4BkxY/VP01wVZfa_I/AAAAAAAABWM/sYNTikoLfDo/s1600/sheashippodrome.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Shea's Hippodrome, 1921. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1231, Item 840A.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="text-align: center;">Soon after the Victoria came a series of larger venues. Among them was Loew’s on Yonge Street. Opened in 1913-14, the Canadian flagship of Marcus Loew’s North American theatre empire was unique in that it was a double-decker – a main theatre seating around 2,150, and an upper theatre, the Winter Garden, which packed in an additional 1,400. Both theatres mixed films and live acts until 1928, when the Winter Garden was closed and the lower theatre converted to films only. Both venues were restored during the 1980s and greet patrons today as the&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.heritagetrust.on.ca/EWG/About-us/History.aspx" style="text-align: center;" target="_blank">Elgin and Winter Garden</a><span style="text-align: center;">. A few blocks north, the Pantages circuit opened a combination film/vaudeville theatre in 1920 which, after various reconfigurations over the years, still operates as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Mirvish_Theatre" target="_blank">Ed Mirvish Theatre</a>. Across the Don River, Allen’s Danforth provided 1,600 seats ads “Canada’s First Super-Suburban Photoplay Palace,” though it mixed in vaudeville acts. Today, it is the <a href="http://thedanforth.com/" target="_blank">Danforth Music Hall</a>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">But the largest of them all, and the one considered to be one of the big four North America’s vaudeville showcases (along with the Palace and State in New York, and the Orpheum in Los Angeles), was <a href="http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2010/07/heritage-toronto-mondays-sheas-hippodrome" target="_blank">Shea’s Hippodrome</a>. Located at the northwest corner of Queen and Bay in present-day Nathan Phillips Square, the Hippodrome opened in April 1914 with 3,200 seats, which included 12 grand opera boxes.&nbsp; Among the famous names who appeared on its stage were Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Cab Calloway, Red Skelton, Olsen and Johnson, Guy Lombardo, Duke Ellington, and Fats Waller. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">To give a sense of what vaudeville was like in Toronto during the era of <b><i>The Wild Party</i></b>, let’s look at a preview of the Hippodrome’s bill from the September 17, 1929 edition of the <b><i>Globe</i></b>:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">The program presented in Shea’s Hippodrome this week rises far above mediocrity. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that it is one of the best entertainments given in this first-class vaudeville theatre for quite a long time. Topping the bill, and rightly so, is Henry Santrey and his soldiers of fortune, all highly accomplished musicians and versatile dancers. Gaynor and Byron evoke hearty applause by fine exhibitions of roller skating on a circular table that appears much too small for their daring tricks. The comic element is supplied in abundance by Jimmy Lucas and his clever lady partner. A born imitator of all national types, “Jimmy” sings songs in all languages but of his own make, and keeps everyone laughing heartily with his irresistible mimicry and “funniosities.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The evening ended with short movies and a feature presentation of the “talkie” feature <b><i><a href="https://archive.org/details/TheFlyingFool1929" target="_blank">The Flying Fool</a></i></b>, starring William Boyd, who was later famous as cowboy star Hopalong Cassidy. By this point, like the other vaudeville venues, the Hippodrome mixed vaudeville and films. The latter began to win out once sound was introduced in 1927. Historian John Kenrick summarized <a href="http://www.musicals101.com/1927-30film2.htm" target="_blank">the impact of film on vaudeville</a>:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">Top vaudeville stars filmed their acts for one-time pay-offs, inadvertently helping to speed the death of vaudeville. After all, when "small time" theatres could offer "big time" performers on screen at a nickel a seat, who could ask audiences to pay higher amounts for less impressive live talent? The newly-formed<span class="apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><span style="color: windowtext; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">RKO studios</span><span class="apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>took over the famed<span class="apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><span style="color: windowtext; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Orpheum vaudeville circuit</span><span class="apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>and swiftly turned it into a chain of full-time movie theaters. The half-century tradition of vaudeville was effectively wiped out within less than four years.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaudeville#cite_note-KenrickLove-12"></a><sup><o:p></o:p></sup></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hMT3wN3ngVQ/VP04boZlW1I/AAAAAAAABWY/NIBHpr8JTl8/s1600/globe-1929-06-15-clean-entertainment-editorial.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hMT3wN3ngVQ/VP04boZlW1I/AAAAAAAABWY/NIBHpr8JTl8/s1600/globe-1929-06-15-clean-entertainment-editorial.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Editorial, the <b>Globe</b>, June 15, 1929.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">Vaudeville, and theatre in general in Toronto, faced another problem: the censor. In his monthly report to police in June 1929, city censor Harry Wodson vowed to clean up the city’s stages with a blacklist of plays and acts theatre managers couldn’t book. Wodson felt that some vaudeville acts had dropped so far below Toronto’s lofty moral standards that they were removed from bills. He noted that because so many theatres offered vaudeville acts, it would be impossible for him or his assistant, William Wiggins, to police them all each week. Wodson’s report doesn’t specify which particular acts were objectionable or why their material was immoral, but it states one of his big fears for the legitimate stage. “A scourge of female wantons and illegitimacy has swept across the legitimate stage in the land to the south of us during the past few months. The business of censors is to see that the epidemic does not reach Toronto.” An editorial in the <b><i>Globe</i></b> hailed Wodson for his efforts to “stop the flow of filth and putridity that seeks to present itself in the form of entertainment before the public of Toronto.” It also criticized the lax censorship laws in the US, where “there has a developed of late years a deplorable epidemic of obscenity masquerading as “art” on the stage and on the screen.” That the <b><i>Globe</i></b> reacted in such a way is not shocking given that its owner at the time refused to run horse racing results or advertisements for female undergarments. One can only imagine what these puritanical killjoys would have made of The Wild Party had it been staged at that time.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal">As elsewhere, vaudeville gradually faded away. After occasionally dumping it, Shea’s Hippodrome dropped it for good in 1941 –the theatre was demolished in the late 1950s to make way for Nathan Phillips Square. The last venue considered to present vaudeville, the Casino at 87 Queen West (now the site of the Sheraton Centre), lingered into the early 1960s.&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Additional material from <b>A Black Man’s Toronto 1914-1980: The Reminiscences of Harry Gairey</b> (Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1981); <b>Black Politics in Toronto Since World War I</b> by Keith S. Henry (Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1981); <b>Palaces of the Night</b> by John Lindsay (Toronto: Lynx Images, 1999); <b>Too Good To Be True: Toronto in the 1920s</b> by Randall White (Toronto: Dundurn, 1993); <b>The Blacks in Canada</b> by Robin W. Winks (Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997); the July 29, 1926, June 14, 1929, June 15, 1929, and September 17, 1929 editions of the <b>Globe</b>; the September 27, 1941 and June 20, 1942 editions of the <b>Globe and Mail</b>; and the July 29, 1926 edition of the <b>Toronto Star</b>.</i></div>http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/03/chatting-before-wild-party.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-2015512077328406775Wed, 04 Mar 2015 15:28:00 +00002015-03-09T23:55:12.346-04:00annie raczBMV Bookshistoryhungarian castleoff the gridthe annextorontooff the grid: ghost city 471 bloor street west<i>This installment of my "Ghost City" column for The Grid was originally published on September 18, 2012. More images will be uploaded shortly.</i><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="375" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/140684924/in/photolist-bny2h3-dr3J9-dr3J7/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Hungarian Castle undergoing renovations to transform into BMV, May 4, 2006. Photo by Jamie Bradburn</i></span></div><br />When it opened in 2006, the Bloor Street branch of BMV represented more than just a giant bookstore. Its bright blue exterior and large street-level windows removed an eyesore known to nearby businesses and residents as the “black hole of the Annex.” After nearly two decades of rot, any new owner or tenant occupying the former Hungarian Castle restaurant would have been greeted with open arms.<br />Why 471 Bloor St. W. appeared abandoned for so long is subject to rumours and urban legends. Elusive landlord Annie Racz didn’t provide answers during her lifetime. When she died in 2004, she left an estate consisting of millions of dollars worth of real estate centered around Bloor Street and Brunswick Avenue, some of which remains empty under the stewardship of her heir. Despite high interest from potential buyers, Racz threw up barriers that months of negotiation couldn’t breach. Theories on why she hung onto these properties without maintaining them included attempts to prevent higher tax assessments, an inability to trust anyone, and sentimental reminders of her late husband.<br /><a name='more'></a><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="800" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/16151406933/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="251"></iframe></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, January 14, 1915. W.J. Parks' grocery at 473 Bloor West eventually became part of the Hungarian Castle/BMV building.</i></span></div><span style="text-align: left;"><br />When </span><i style="text-align: left;"><b>Eye Weekly</b></i><span style="text-align: left;">’s Edward Keenan profiled Racz in 2003, he found that, after six weeks of trying to track her down, he didn’t feel any wiser than at the beginning of his investigation. He heard rumours that had her living anywhere from above By the Way Cafe to Richmond Hill, that she resembled a bag lady, and that her legs had been amputated. Annex Residents Association chair Eric Domville was so frustrated by Racz’s refusal to do anything with 471 Bloor that he began to wonder if she was “a figment of somebody’s imagination. Does she live in a cave, or in a secret hideaway like Lex Luthor?”</span><br /><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MaxHzQqHNvI/VP5qYh3V3yI/AAAAAAAABW8/NHgYQOf7Kpc/s1600/ts%2B73-12-03%2Bhungarian%2Bcastle%2Bad%2Bplatters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MaxHzQqHNvI/VP5qYh3V3yI/AAAAAAAABW8/NHgYQOf7Kpc/s1600/ts%2B73-12-03%2Bhungarian%2Bcastle%2Bad%2Bplatters.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, December 3, 1973.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Racz hadn’t always been so shadowy or seemingly neglectful. Before she and her husband Leslie purchased the building, the site housed a variety of tenants. During the first half of the 20th century, it was occupied by several grocers, a drug company, and residents who enjoyed five-bedroom flats. After a succession of furniture stores operated there during the 1950s and 1960s, the Raczs spent two years transforming it into the medieval-styled Hungarian Castle. When the restaurant opened in 1972, it joined the large number of Hungarian eateries along the Bloor strip owned and patronized by fellow refugees who fled Hungary after the Soviet Union crushed the revolution in 1956. To make their eatery stand out, the Raczs hired Oscar Berceller, former proprietor of legendary King Street celebrity hangout <a href="http://torontoist.com/2011/08/historicist_winstonswhere_celebrities_meet_to_eat/" target="_blank">Winston’s</a>, as an advisor.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vr_Uf0CIcuE/VP5qryw1GcI/AAAAAAAABXE/I5hkbWXS2XE/s1600/ts%2B73-12-28%2Bnew%2Byears%2Bad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vr_Uf0CIcuE/VP5qryw1GcI/AAAAAAAABXE/I5hkbWXS2XE/s1600/ts%2B73-12-28%2Bnew%2Byears%2Bad.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, December 28, 1973.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>During the years it operated, the Hungarian Castle was known for its kitschy decor and windows covered in wrought-iron crests and gates. A basement bakery drew praise from customers for its goodies and scorn from health officials for its filth. The upper floors housed a series of bars ranging from the Spanish-themed El Flamenco to student watering hole Annie’s Place.<br /><br />Following her husband’s death during the 1980s, Racz closed the Hungarian Castle. Those interested in the space received calls from Racz in the middle of the night to meet her at doughnut shops. Book City owner Hans Donker’s enthusiasm to move his store a few blocks east dimmed after such encounters, along with Racz’s insistence that he retain the restaurant’s furnishings. When he toured the space with Racz circa 1990, he noticed that display cases were filled with rotting pastry.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LDYxRcuOE2Y/VP5q5HNlTpI/AAAAAAAABXM/6Q-Xz_Rb-UE/s1600/ts%2B78-06-11%2Bhungarian%2Bcastle%2Bad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LDYxRcuOE2Y/VP5q5HNlTpI/AAAAAAAABXM/6Q-Xz_Rb-UE/s1600/ts%2B78-06-11%2Bhungarian%2Bcastle%2Bad.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, June 11, 1978.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>BMV owner Patrick Hempelmann was equally frustrated by his dealings with Racz. “We’d set up a meeting, come to a verbal agreement, and then she’d find some reason to pull out,” he told the <b><i>Globe and Mail</i></b>. When he purchased the building from her estate in September 2005, he found its interior resembled a horror-movie set. Liquor bottles still lined the bar and tables were set for dining. Pots were left on the stove and dishwashers were filled with plates. Grand pianos and raccoon corpses had rotted. The bakery was buried in four feet of water. It took three months, a crew of workers wearing ventilation masks, and 40 large dumpsters to clean the place out. Despite the decay, Hempelmann was relieved when the building was found to be structurally sound. A year after he bought it, book browsers filed in to spend hours looking for finds.<br /><br />In some respects, the long decay of the Hungarian Castle mirrored the demise of the Hungarian community along Bloor West. Where it was once, as writer John Lorinc once termed it, “a veritable Budapest of eateries,” only the Country Style in the heart of the strip and the Coffee Mill in Yorkville survive. Perhaps the medieval warriors who graced the building’s exterior were fighting as best they could until they had to give in to the changing landscape.<br /><br /><i>Additional material from the February 27, 2003 edition of <b>Eye Weekly</b>, the August 28, 2004 and December 10, 2005 editions of the <b>Globe and Mail</b>, and the September 30, 1972 and June 11, 2006 editions of the <b>Toronto Star</b>. Since this article was originally published, the Coffee Mill closed in 2014.</i>http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/03/off-grid-ghost-city-471-bloor-street.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-7411764795957771932Fri, 27 Feb 2015 13:43:00 +00002015-02-27T08:43:17.311-05:00alan redwayarchitectureeast yorkghost cityhampton parkhistoryleasideleaside ghosttorontotrue davidsonoff the grid: ghost city the bayview ghost<i>This installment of my "Ghost City" column for <b>The Grid</b> was originally published on January 8, 2013.</i><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F7lZ4MxMtbU/VPBzDajyQHI/AAAAAAAABUU/tRaaAp7cbkM/s1600/ts%2B81-03-22%2Blingering%2Bmetro%2Bproblems.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F7lZ4MxMtbU/VPBzDajyQHI/AAAAAAAABUU/tRaaAp7cbkM/s1600/ts%2B81-03-22%2Blingering%2Bmetro%2Bproblems.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, March 22, 1981.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />When East York rejected physician Charles Trow’s offer to sell his 25-acre wooded property south of Leaside to the municipality for use as parkland circa 1950, little did political officials realize the headaches that would ensue over the next half-century.<br /><br />Instead, the property—which offered a beautiful view of the Don Valley—was sold by Trow’s widow in 1953 to developers Hampton Park Company Ltd. Legal problems arose almost immediately as Hampton Park proprietors Harry Freedman and Harry Frimerman beat a foreclosure attempt when they were slow to pay the mortgage. The site was approved for apartment development in East York’s first official plan in 1957, but the document was scrapped when the township planner was fired for consulting with tower builders on the side.<br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br />As Hampton Park developed its plans for the site, residents in the adjoining Governor’s Bridge neighbourhood were alarmed by the prospect of a flood of new neighbours and a reduced view of the Don Valley. Lobbying by the Governor’s Bridge Ratepayers Association (GBRA) resulted in an East York bylaw prohibiting the clearing of more than one acre of land. Hampton Park found a loophole by subdividing the property among family members into lots of less than an acre each. East York reeve Jack Allen shocked everyone by approving, without provisions for servicing the site with sewage and water, a building permit in October 1959 for two 105-unit buildings near the recently completed Bayview Avenue extension. Hampton Park worked day and night to erect their white-coloured apartment complex as the shock set in.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_yS1A8pIWO8/VPBzQrnmhtI/AAAAAAAABUc/pylZNBoVMHY/s1600/ts%2B61-06-13%2Bspeculators%2Bdid%2Bwrong.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_yS1A8pIWO8/VPBzQrnmhtI/AAAAAAAABUc/pylZNBoVMHY/s1600/ts%2B61-06-13%2Bspeculators%2Bdid%2Bwrong.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, June 13 1961.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />While Allen later claimed the builders had every legal right to proceed, East York council moved quickly to halt the project. When the building permit was revoked on November 9, 1959, the structure was a seven-storey shell that had a roof but lacked doors, elevators, and windows. Spurred by new reeve True Davidson, East York attempted to rezone the site as parkland, but Hampton Park dug in its heels. A fiery session of Metro Toronto council in May 1961 saw Davidson attack Metro Toronto chairman Frederick Gardiner because his law firm worked for Hampton Park. The GBRA repeatedly called for a judicial inquiry into the property. The issue went to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) in September 1961 but, frustrated by the conflicting accounts of the site’s saga, reserved any decision until matters were settled at the Ontario Court of Appeal. The wait lasted two decades.<br /><br />The shell earned the nickname “Bayview Ghost” for its white appearance and decaying state. It served, the Star observed in 1966, as “a haven for wine drinkers and juvenile delinquents.” Depending on one’s point of view, it was a Don Valley landmark or an eyesore waiting for a tragedy. In 1969, the Labourers Union campaigned to tear it down after safety director Norbert Pike toured the site. His verdict: “a chamber of horrors” with infinite construction safety violations. “If nobody has been killed in here,” Pike told the <b><i>Star</i></b>, “it’s a bloody miracle.” Despite Pike’s efforts, local officials passed to buck as to who held the authority to knock the Ghost down.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WmZ2vShla64/VPBzdz5Q4zI/AAAAAAAABUo/_-90gZz2Row/s1600/ts%2B69-08-25%2Bchamber%2Bof%2Bhorrors%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WmZ2vShla64/VPBzdz5Q4zI/AAAAAAAABUo/_-90gZz2Row/s1600/ts%2B69-08-25%2Bchamber%2Bof%2Bhorrors%2B1.jpg" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Jfji2LQIFpM/VPBzdko3BCI/AAAAAAAABUk/hAEQriQd3LU/s1600/ts%2B69-08-25%2Bchamber%2Bof%2Bhorrors%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Jfji2LQIFpM/VPBzdko3BCI/AAAAAAAABUk/hAEQriQd3LU/s1600/ts%2B69-08-25%2Bchamber%2Bof%2Bhorrors%2B2.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, August 25, 1969.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />The 1970s saw a battle of wills between East York and the increasingly elusive site owners. The property was on the verge of being seized for back taxes when Hampton Park paid its bill. Under the guise of Ranch Home Builders, the owners pushed an 880-unit project, which was the final straw for East York council. The municipality convinced the provincial government to pass special legislation in 1979 that granted East York the power to demolish any building in “a ruinous or dilapidated state” that had gone unoccupied for three years. Hampton Park applied for a judicial review, claiming East York abused its power by attempting to claim the property without satisfactory compensation.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zXjU99x5jSY/VPBzv8sueYI/AAAAAAAABU0/TRDMOujjUpY/s1600/ts%2B75-06-03%2Bredway%2Bholding%2Bfallen%2Bbricks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zXjU99x5jSY/VPBzv8sueYI/AAAAAAAABU0/TRDMOujjUpY/s1600/ts%2B75-06-03%2Bredway%2Bholding%2Bfallen%2Bbricks.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, June 3, 1975.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />When the battle finally returned to the OMB, nearby residents testified that the new project would destroy the close-knit nature of their neighbourhoods, a stance a Star editorial felt held “more sentimental nostalgia than good sense.” The paper laughed at claims that the new residences would be a “visual calamity,” given the state of the Bayview Ghost. In its November 1980 decision, the OMB approved the project at half its intended size. East York Mayor Alan Redway found the decision “completely unacceptable” and appealed to the provincial cabinet to overturn it. The province agreed with East York’s density arguments and tossed out the OMB decision in March 1981. Redway couldn’t disguise his glee to the press—“This is it. After 22 years, this is really it.” Two months later, the courts upheld the 1979 demolition legislation, but ordered East York to cover the demolition cost. A fundraising attempt to cover the estimated $250,000 required to knock the Ghost down by selling bricks for a dollar only raised $300 over a three-and-a-half month period.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1Nx-1KvT05k/VPBz8hF3GkI/AAAAAAAABU8/GFHXqcJfjxc/s1600/ts%2B81-10-31%2Bdemo%2Bpicture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1Nx-1KvT05k/VPBz8hF3GkI/AAAAAAAABU8/GFHXqcJfjxc/s1600/ts%2B81-10-31%2Bdemo%2Bpicture.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, October 31, 1981.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />The fate of the building was sealed in September 1981 when Hampton Park consented to fund the demolition. The company signed an agreement with East York to knock the structure down by year end, mix the rubble into the ground, top it with dirt to allow grass to grow, and complete and service a 66-home development within two years. Redway was at the controls when a wrecking ball painted like a Jack O’Lantern took its first swing at the building amid a party-like atmosphere on October 30, 1981. Looking on grumpily was part-owner Morris Freedman, who told the Star, “This shouldn’t have been demolished. People should have been living here 22 years ago. But it’s a democracy. People get what they want.” Some bricks, along with other artifacts, wound up in a display at Todmorden Mills.<br /><br />Thanks to further legal disputes, the homes weren’t built for another two decades. Developers unconnected with Hampton Park finally pushed ahead with the Governor’s Bridge Estates at the dawn of the 21st-century. The Bayview Ghost continues to haunt the site: The only street leading off True Davidson Drive is called Hampton Park Crescent.<br /><br /><i>Additional material from <b>Leaside</b>, Jane Pitfield, editor (Toronto: Natural Heritage, 2000); the June 10, 1961, May 1, 1979, January 26, 1980, September 15, 1981, and October 31, 1981 editions of the <b>Globe and Mail</b>, and the September 29, 1961, December 2, 1966, August 25, 1969, May 10, 1980, May 15, 1980, November 21, 1980, March 17, 1981, and May 16, 1981 editions of the <b>Toronto Star</b>.</i>http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/02/off-grid-ghost-city-bayview-ghost.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-7244087857494932081Thu, 29 Jan 2015 15:33:00 +00002015-03-20T22:09:00.785-04:001970s1980sgus harrishistoryjohn sewellmel lastmanpublic transitscarboroughscarborough RTtorontottcUTDCoff the grid: scarborough transit debate goes back to the future<i>From 2012 to 2014 I contributed to <b>The Grid</b>. This article was originally published online on July 15, 2013. Given the ongoing debates over public transit in Scarborough, this piece will remain timely for a long time to come. You may also wish to read a piece I wrote for <b>Torontoist</b> several months later on <a href="http://torontoist.com/2013/09/next-stop-scarborough/" target="_blank">the general history of public transit in Scarborough</a>.</i><br /><i><br /></i><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/16208477810/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="510"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Toronto Star</b>, March 19, 1985. Click on image for larger version.</span></span></div><i><br /></i>Torontonians love arguing about the same proposed transit lines ad nauseum. Tuesday’s City Council debate—regarding which form the Scarborough RT‘s replacement will take—feels like a replay of past battles where a streetcar/LRT line was displaced in favour of a pricier, sexier option.<br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rLJ-Jqps64U/VMo6NDHHkXI/AAAAAAAABT0/dMjcS-oUerI/s1600/ts%2B75-01-29%2Bscarborough%2Btransit%2Bmap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rLJ-Jqps64U/VMo6NDHHkXI/AAAAAAAABT0/dMjcS-oUerI/s1600/ts%2B75-01-29%2Bscarborough%2Btransit%2Bmap.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, January 29, 1975.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Among the priority studies recommended in January 1975—by a joint provincial/Metro Toronto task force on the region’s transportation needs for the next quarter-century—was a high-speed transit line linking the recently approved Kennedy subway station to Scarborough Town Centre, Malvern, and Pickering. Scarborough officials saw this line as key to spurring development in a downtown area based around the new civic centre, which would employ 25,000 people.<br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br />Based on passenger capacity projections, the plan that emerged was a streetcar line on its own right-of-way. While Scarborough officials glowed about the development possibilities, others, like Toronto city councillor John Sewell, believed the opposite. In a series of <b><i>Globe and Mail</i></b> op-eds, Sewell argued the line would serve commuters who worked in downtown Toronto and would be cursed by debt and low ridership. His appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board to hold public hearings was rejected when it approved the line in September 1977.<br /><br />Another early opponent was North York Mayor Mel Lastman. During a December 1978 North York council meeting, Lastman said that TTC services in his jurisdiction shouldn’t be sacrificed because of the selfishness of a fellow Metro municipality. (Lastman went on to exhibit just that when he later fought to preserve the Sheppard subway line as a development tool for North York.)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/16209643119/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="498"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, January 24, 1984. Click on image for larger version.</i></span></div><br />The streetcar line was intended to commence soon after Kennedy station opened in 1980. Instead, TTC staff reports presented in June 1981 recommended a new vehicle Queen’s Park had heavily invested in. Through its interest in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Transportation_Development_Corporation" target="_blank">Urban Transportation Development Corporation</a> (UTDC), the province had been promoting the Intermediate Capacity Transit System (ICTS) since the mid-1970s as a cheaper alternative to subways. While there were technical problems with the system’s linear-induction motors, the province saw the vehicles as ideal for a future network of TTC and GO lines. When the TTC approved the system switch, Metro Toronto chairman Paul Godfrey was confident the transit provider would work the bugs out.<br /><br />Scarborough mayor Gus Harris thought there was “something very screwy” in the TTC’s sudden change of heart. He was quickly isolated for his concerns over ICTS testing problems; Scarborough council approved the switch after a six-hour debate. Their decision was boosted by promises that the province would cover cost increases and that the vehicles would be quieter than streetcars. Some councillors regretted their vote when reports of exploding motors during testing filtered back to them a few months later. One TTC official dismissed the lack of public scrutiny of the project, noting that most people didn’t understand the complexities of ICTS technology.<br /><br />Though several TTC officials favoured naming the line “Metro Rail,” the name “RT” was revealed as the winner of a public contest in January 1982. Speculation that riders would humanize the line’s name to “Artie” proved idle.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4pwdqDwu2pE/VMo5zbiAHsI/AAAAAAAABTo/HO9f3rAui8E/s1600/ts%2B85-02-22%2Bphoto%2Bof%2Bline%2Balmost%2Bready.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4pwdqDwu2pE/VMo5zbiAHsI/AAAAAAAABTo/HO9f3rAui8E/s1600/ts%2B85-02-22%2Bphoto%2Bof%2Bline%2Balmost%2Bready.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, March 22, 1985.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Local testing of the new vehicles began in April 1984. The public received free rides on the test track that summer. John Sewell, by now a <b><i>Globe and Mail</i></b> columnist, still wasn’t impressed with the line, calling its seating “uncomfortable” and “not private enough.” Gus Harris publicly reversed his position, going from an “I told you so” attitude as project costs rose from $134 to $196 million, to boosting the technology as a sign that Scarborough was “the city of the future.” There were bugs galore, starting with the return of the first four cars to UTDC due to uneven wheels. Late fleet delivery prompted the TTC to operate a reduced schedule once the line opened; shuttle buses would run after 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and all day Sunday.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xFks_ISRd7A/VMo5UYn5OMI/AAAAAAAABTg/usrcmt9WtF4/s1600/20130925utdcad_small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xFks_ISRd7A/VMo5UYn5OMI/AAAAAAAABTg/usrcmt9WtF4/s1600/20130925utdcad_small.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, March 19. 1985.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Up to 1,000 dignitaries and TTC employees attended the RT’s opening ceremony on March 22, 1985. Harris called it the “greatest day in the history of Scarborough,” while a message from Premier Frank Miller (who didn’t attend) observed that “the RT is proof positive that Ontario can challenge the world and produce the best facilities anywhere.” Guests were treated to champagne and a performance by U of T’s Lady Godiva Band at Kennedy station. Also attending were placard-waving protestors angry at the TTC for not making the new line wheelchair accessible.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/15775851603/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="478"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><b>Toronto Star</b>, March 23, 1985. Click on image for larger version.</i></span></div><br />The next day, 30,000 people flooded the seven kilometre line to take advantage of free rides during the first official day of service. The biggest complaint during the RTs first week was the small size of the two-car trains. Other complaints soon arose, especially from neighbours between Kennedy and Lawrence East stations who found the RT too noisy. Despite attempts to fix the problems, caused by flat spots on the wheels and rail joints, several complainants eventually wound up with sizable property tax breaks for their misery.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/16395876425/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="429"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><b>Toronto Star,</b> March 12, 1985. Click on image for larger version.</i></span></div><br />As other problems emerged, the transit system of the future no longer looked so bright. The extension to Malvern was killed due to cost, as ICTS didn’t prove much cheaper than a subway. As early as 1987, local politicians mused about converting the line into a subway, but the TTC indicated that would also cost too much. There was speculation that the RT had to continue operating so that UTDC could sell its system, which had been bought by Detroit and Vancouver, overseas. The line was shut down for over two months during the summer of 1988 to replace a turnaround loop at Kennedy whose curves were too tight for the ICTS cars to handle. As the line’s lifespan dwindled, thoughts about its replacement came down to the LRT proposed in Transit City and the subway championed by Mayor Rob Ford. Whichever form wins this week, don’t count on it being the last word.<br /><br /><i>Additional material from the December 21, 1976, December 4, 1978, June 17, 1981, March 25, 1982, July 12, 1984, August 15, 1984, March 7, 1985, June 3, 1985, and October 12, 1987 editions of the <b>Globe and Mail</b>, and the January 29, 1975, September 30, 1977, December 11, 1978, June 17, 1981, June 22, 1981, January 23, 1982, March 23, 1985, and March 24, 1985 editions of the <b>Toronto Star</b>.</i>http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/01/off-grid-scarborough-transit-debate.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20621615.post-3602081115490311006Sat, 17 Jan 2015 19:06:00 +00002015-01-17T14:48:00.276-05:00colonial tavernhistoryjohn frances scholesoff the gridscholes hoteltorontooff the grid: ghost city - 203 yonge street<i>This story was originally published online by <b>The Grid</b> on May 21, 2013.</i><br /><br />There were few sports <a href="http://canadianorangehistoricalsite.com/JFScholes.php" target="_blank">John Francis Scholes</a> tackled that he didn’t master. The Irish-born, Toronto-reared athlete racked up championship titles in boxing, rowing, and snowshoeing during the Victorian era. His first trophy, earned during a 220-yard hurdle race in 1869, was proudly displayed in the Yonge Street hotel that eventually bore his family’s name.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1WgvSRi0HYc/VLqyTdmJkUI/AAAAAAAABSs/Rq4DtNcVq2A/s1600/scholes-small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1WgvSRi0HYc/VLqyTdmJkUI/AAAAAAAABSs/Rq4DtNcVq2A/s1600/scholes-small.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Illustration of John Francis Scholes, as it appeared in the March 25, 1871 edition of the <b>Canadian Illustrated News</b>.</span></i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Scholes entered the hospitality business around 1880, opening a bar and hotel at 185 Yonge St. He moved his business a few doors north to 203 Yonge St. in the late 1890s, christening it the Athlete Hotel. Scholes used it as a base to mentor local athletes, including his sons John (who inherited his amateur boxing skills) and Lou (a champion rower). Scholes’ tough nature carried him through to his end—when doctors indicated a stomach ailment was terminal, he insisted on dying at the Athlete Hotel, where he entertained friends and former competitors.<br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-V5g68esrtyU/VLq6grWY9wI/AAAAAAAABS8/kotxVZwFSHM/s1600/scholeshotelsmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-V5g68esrtyU/VLq6grWY9wI/AAAAAAAABS8/kotxVZwFSHM/s1600/scholeshotelsmall.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Scholes Hotel, circa 1945. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1257, Series 1057, Item 537.</i></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table>Following Scholes’ death in March 1918, the hotel stayed in family hands and adopted their name. Ads for the Scholes’ Hotel offered typical hospitality promises—“good food, cleanliness, and efficient service.” Less impressed were provincial liquor officials, who suspended the hotel’s booze license in May 1946 for overcrowding and the heinous crime of permitting unaccompanied men to enter the women’s beverage room. (At this time, men and women legally drank in separate rooms.)<br /><br />The business was sold in 1947 to Goody and Harvey Lichtenberg, who renamed it the Colonial Tavern. They secured the second cocktail lounge licence along Yonge Street (after the Silver Rail) and began booking jazz acts. Their first performer showed their enlightened attitude: pianist Cy McLean, who had led the first all-black jazz band in Ontario.<br /><br />Disaster struck on September 27, 1948. Around 8:10 p.m., a refrigerator explosion blew out a wall and sent four men to hospital. “I just remember reaching for my beer when I went sailing across the table top and toward the bar,” patron Douglas Wilson told the <b><i>Star</i></b>. “A seven-foot paneled door landed right beside me.” Refrigeration at the Colonial was cursed: Faulty wiring led to a fire on July 24, 1960 that required a year-long reconstruction effort.<br /><br />Amid these disasters, the Colonial became one of Toronto’s finest jazz joints. Headliners spanned the jazz spectrum, including Chet Baker, Sidney Bechet, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus, and Sarah Vaughan. Not all patrons found the surroundings enticing. “Nobody ever called it an ideal place to hear music,” Robert Fulford grumbled in the <b><i>Star</i></b> in 1987. “The ceiling was low, the food bad, the waitresses surly, the patrons sometimes loudly drunk. The room was a tunnel-like hall with a square bulge in the middle. If you sat in front of the bandstand the musicians seemed too loud; if you sat to left or right of them you had the sense of over-hearing rather than hearing the music. There were no good tables at the Colonial, only less bad tables.” Yet Fulford admitted that because of the quality of the music, “none of this mattered.”<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YyBYQDuqK-Y/VLq6-HIjIKI/AAAAAAAABTE/YGm_-SBS_Gk/s1600/colonial1970ssmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YyBYQDuqK-Y/VLq6-HIjIKI/AAAAAAAABTE/YGm_-SBS_Gk/s1600/colonial1970ssmall.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Colonial Tavern in the 1970s. Photo by Ellis Wiley. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 124, File 3, Item 123.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>The Colonial benefitted from the Yonge Street Mall pedestrian-zone experiment of the early 1970s. Goody Lichtenberg was stunned at how packed his new patio was when Yonge was closed off in May 1971. “If I don’t look excited,” he told the <i><b>Star</b></i>, “it’s only because I’m dead beat.” Demand forced Lichtenberg to gather food from another restaurant. Within a week, he hired 20 part-time employees and found they weren’t enough.<br /><br />Inside, the entertainment line-up changed through the 1970s. Jazz performers faded as the upstairs room gradually converted into a discotheque. A basement venue—whose names ranged from the unfortunate Meet Market to the Colonial Underground—aimed for a younger crowd through local acts like Rough Trade and the Viletones. Upstairs and downstairs didn’t always mix—when bluesman Long John Baldry sent staff downstairs to tell the Diodes to turn it down so that he could play an acoustic set, bouncers charged at the punks with pool cues.<br /><br />After the Lichtenbergs sold the venue in the late 1970s, the Colonial descended into the general sleaziness of Yonge Street during that era. Ads for the “Bump and Grind Revue” in 1978 promised a combination of rock bands and “exotic Black Bottom serving maidens.” The venue’s strip-club phase ran into trouble when a dancer was convicted for public nudity. City regulations enforcing g-strings were blamed for chipping away at business. Several attempts were made to return to jazz programming, but none took.<br /><br />In 1982, the City purchased the property. It intended to use it as a connecting link between Massey Hall and the Elgin and Winter Garden theatres to create a mini-Lincoln Center-style entertainment complex. Despite protests from the local jazz community, City Council approved plans to demolish the Colonial in 1987 and replace it with a parkette.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BsnD4Atpd8E/VLq70sNRVRI/AAAAAAAABTQ/nVS2rgzBRwc/s1600/colonialdemolishedsmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BsnD4Atpd8E/VLq70sNRVRI/AAAAAAAABTQ/nVS2rgzBRwc/s1600/colonialdemolishedsmall.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Site of the Colonial Tavern, post-demolition, 1987. Photo by Ellis Wiley. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 124, File 3, Item 152.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />The following year, the <i><b>Star’</b></i>s Christopher Hume laughed at the notion the tiny park would improve its stretch of Yonge Street, viewing it as a hole in the streetscape. “This is one of the few stretches of Yonge where there are significant numbers of historical buildings left,” Hume observed. “It doesn’t make sense to mess it up for the sake of creating an ‘open’ space hardly anyone will use.”<br /><br />Bracketed by the ghosts of the old banks surrounding it, the former site of the Colonial awaits its next incarnation as part of the Massey Tower condo development.<br /><br /><i>Additional material from <b>Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk and Beyond 1977-1981 </b>by Liz Worth (Montreal: Bongo Beat, 2010), the January 11, 1937, October 25, 1940, and July 13, 1978 editions of the <b>Globe and Mail</b>, and the March 5, 1918, May 6, 1946, September 28, 1948, July 25, 1960, June 10, 1961, May 31, 1971, February 20, 1979, April 3, 1987, May 9, 1987, and September 24, 1988 editions of the <b>Toronto Star</b>.</i><br /><br /><i><b>Postscript</b>: The following comment was left by Bonnie Lawrence Shear on May 30, 2013:</i><br /><br />The authors lack of anything resembling the facts is staggering. My father, Mike Lawrence, bought Scholes Hotel around 1945. I was a small child then but I believe the latest was 1946. He later took in my uncles (the Lichtenbergs) as minority partners, Harvey at the beginning, and Goody a couple of years later. Neither was involved in the purchase.While Goody was in charge of booking the acts, and Harvey in charge of day to day operations, my father was the brains behind the Colonial’s success.My father came from an extremely poor family, graduated as an engineer, but because he was Jewish, could not work as an engineer and had to go into business for himself. He was brilliant and a real risk taker.He went on to many other business and other achievements.<br /><br />Although it probably had a lot of the faults Fulford talks about, it also was a great success, supported 3 families, and was beloved by many.<br /><br />The Eaton Centre, and my father’s many illnesses in the 70′s before he died did lead to it’s eventual demise. The building of The Eaton Centre meant that the main thoroughfare on Yonge Street was no longer the street, but pedestrian traffic was transferred to inside the mall, especially in Toronto’s harsh weather.The Colonial’s demise began with the building of the Eaton Centre.<br /><br />Our family did not sell it to the city, but to an interim purchaser who reneged on the contract. The city eventually took over the property.<br /><br />So many fond memories, and some sad and poignant ones too.http://jbwarehouse.blogspot.com/2015/01/on-grid-ghost-city-203-yonge-street.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jamie)0